How to use Play as your Business Strategy | Michelle Lee, IDEO Partner

27:48And to find other leaders who are going through so many of the same challenges that I was, was just really comforting. So I'd say that's a big one, which might be unexpected, I think, to the question that you posed originally. But I think a big lesson was you don't have to do it alone. How do you find your friends as you lead? And also, I think that That also connects to leaving your ego behind, right? Like as a leader, yeah, you're, I guess, technically in charge and you do have to make calls and people are looking to you. But that's different from doing it alone. That's a great reminder. And I think that applies to leadership, to creativity, to anything.

28:29You definitely enjoy any role more if you have people around you who can support you, who can have discussions with. So this is so great to hear. I want to come back to what you said about your designing your career as kind of not really having necessarily a goal, but seeing your whole life as a game, as the way to play and be curious about different things and navigate through this. I hear this from a lot of very successful creative leaders, that this is how they navigated their life to get to the incredible positions and success that they have. But it constantly also makes me think about how do you make sure that you don't get lost in these curiosities and all the opportunities that are there?

29:17Because as creatives, I think we are curious about so many things and it's only natural to start changing careers or pivoting all the time. And is it a survival bias that we see incredibly successful people who manage through these pivots, but there was another ingredient that we are not considering as part of this curiosity? So how did you make sure that while making all these pivots and following your curiosity, was there any other guiding principles that helped you to make sure you're actually progressing rather than kind of going in circles? Yeah. Okay, so this is really interesting. Just last week, IDEO released a report called the IDEO IQ, which I'm happy to share a link after this.

30:01But one of the things it did was it talked to 100 leaders across different organizations and surveyed them across different skills. And it's like this power framework, power, because it's an acronym, makes it easier to remember. P being perspective, which is all about like, how do you anticipate future trends? How do you look widely and see what's happening even beyond your industry, beyond what your competitors in your industry are doing? O is for ownership. It's how do you empower your teams to feel like they have the autonomy to act? Wavelength is how do you work collaboratively and across silos?

30:42Experimentation is prototyping and making things real. resonance is about how do you understand what your end user, the customers really want, and then bring that into your daily decisions. And what was really interesting about this was that we then, once we surveyed people, we put them into, of course, you got your two by two, but up in the upper right were people who were people who had that perspective, who knew what was going out on in the world could dream and come up with ideas, but also were experimenters. They had to implement. They had to make it real. And if you had that combination, what we saw was actually led to revenue, profit, confidence that you were well set up to move into the future.

31:25And that was key. You can't just dream. You can't just be curious. You have to be experimenting. You have to be doing. You have to be tangibly moving and progressing and putting things into the world. And that's really important. I mean, as a design consultancy, we don't want to leave people with cool ideas. We want to help those ideas actually make it into the world, which will take, you know, org transformation. It might take learning new skills. It might take new capabilities, new partners. But you can't have one without the other. And this might be where actually it's beneficial. I started my career as an engineer because engineering is all about making.

32:01And then I think design backed me up to be like, but what are you making? How are we thoughtful about it? How do we do the research to make sure this really resonates with people? So those two pieces tie really well together. I think design is sometimes like I dream and get to be curious and explore. And then engineering, which is, of course, part of design helps pull me through to, OK, but what are we making? Like, what do I have to show for it at the end? And I specifically was mechanical engineering. So I really like to see something tangible that comes out of my work. So I think that's key.

32:34I think that's what was really interesting coming out of the idea IQ is that we need to design organizations and culture where people feel that, where they feel the ability to dream, to be curious, to experiment, but also have the autonomy to execute and feel ownership to take things all the way through. So I'd say you need the balance of those two things. Well, that's the classic convergent and divergent thinking. You need both to come up with innovation and ideas. Can you give actually an example? And I would love both, like maybe more from your career example, and we can talk about more company example.

33:07How does it show up in real life? So how did you make decisions throughout your career? So you mentioned a few where you were driven by curiosity, you sought something that you liked, you tried it. But where did you have to make this more logical decisions, more strategic, more engineering decisions throughout your career that led you to this leadership and business positions? Yeah. So career-wise, in terms of where do we have to execute and make things real? Yeah. Again, it's like heart and dollar sign, that seesaw. You have to show results, right? You have to make sure you're filling a pipeline with interesting work.

33:46You need to make sure you're bringing in great talent. And so, yes, I spend my days with clients and come up with really great designs and work and being inspired regularly. But I also spend my days hiring. I'm in interviews. I've got to find people who I feel will do great work here. I work with talent to think about L &D. People don't just become brilliant, lots of great people, but how do you nurture them? How do you help them feel supported? How do you put structures in place to make that happen? Like I mentioned, the Give to Grow book that we're having people read, we're like, yeah, we can tell people it's not just sales, but what are some actual tips and tricks?

34:34And who's even done it and has written whole books about this that we can learn from and borrow from. I think just also, yes, we can talk about what interesting challenges are to take on, but eventually we got to write that proposal and close the deal too and get started. And there's all kinds of tactical things like that. We have to get contracting through and everything else. We've got to scope the project right. We have to prepare the team to get there. So there's a lot of execution in that as well. And I think constantly checking in to make sure that what we're delivering measures up. Where do we need to come up with ways that don't just tell, but show the value that we can bring?

35:13I mean, I think, okay, so another thing too is, I talked a little bit about the work and trying to sell work and what does that look like? And we love really getting creative with it. Some of my favorite proposals that we've done, one of them, we have a designer, Dave Vondel, out of our Chicago office. And he's always like, can I make a game for this? Can I make a game for this? and he took his personal Game Boy and designed a game that helped a client understand what the design journey looks like and what it means to navigate ambiguity and how do you decide when you go out who you talk to and what can you learn from various people?

35:49How do you bring that into your design? And then we sent this Game Boy to the client and they're like, what's this? It's not a deck. It's a Game Boy with a game on it. But again, it was just like, just make it, right? Like we have people who love getting tangible and just making things that it's easier for people to experience it and understand than to just hear it from us. I love this example that kind of making something tangible can show the value that you're bringing. And we constantly talk about the REI on design and how to show the value of something that is so intangible and especially something so intangible as play, how can you show the value of that to someone who never experienced it, or rather who never thought of it as a business tool or someone who potentially has completely different problems in their day-to-day life as a business stakeholder.

36:42So I like this way of communicating what you do through something tangible, whether it is a prototype, whether it is, yeah, the physical thing, it's a great way to actually, yeah, show, just not tell, not just tell. Would love to hear also a little bit more about, as we started this conversation about REI on design and the value that creativity and design brings. Now that you are, and you always, obviously you've been already in the boardrooms, but now I suppose you spend even more time in a senior conversations about business, whether it is with clients, whether it is with your own company. And I suppose it's a bit easier within your own company that already values design and creativity and play.

37:25But when you talk to your clients who potentially not on the same page yet, and you describe to them not just creativity, but also that they need to play to solve problems. And how do you put again a number on it if they They say, well, we don't have time to do all these weird things or we don't think this is what we need. So how do you explain to them what actual business or financial value all of these things bring? Yeah, I mean, that's actually one of the reasons I'm so excited that the IDIQ came out last week because they did quantify it in some way. And actually saw that something that I think we've been talking about where we intuitively know that culture matters.

38:08they're like, yeah, when we actually survey people and tried to figure out where people fall alongside these five different criteria that we set out, including experimentation and being curious and seeking perspectives, that we actually did see this result in the companies that scored highest in terms of also what are they achieving with revenue and profit and just confidence for how they can even take on the future from here. So that is great to see. I think otherwise it's just... Luckily, we've been around for so long. We have a lot of incredible case studies where, oh yeah, no, we understand when you think about things differently.

38:45When you allow people to think big, it gets you to more interesting solutions that then rise to the top. Walking to the office every day, we have a number of different case studies. You've been here, so you've seen some of them, Katarina. But I mean, coming in this morning, I'm always in awe. I walk by the willow breast pump that we have in the hallway as I get to my desk. The Willow Breast Pump came about when a startup came to IDEO and said, women, mothers, in order to provide for their children, hook themselves up to these really loud, obnoxious breast pumps several times a day. They have to sequester themselves in a room.

39:22We've been doing this for decades. Why? Couldn't there be another way to do it? and again it's a play mindset which is it goes beyond just like let have you know a game of foosball it is about just being creative and letting people think big and backtrack the question not just be like how to make a best breast pump but it's like what's a better way for a mom to deliver milk to their baby and it resulted in a breast pump that is self-contained there's two of them and they fit in a woman's bra so that women can go about their day and pump milk for their babies. It won all kinds of awards. It's since had other companies follow their lead.

40:03It changed the whole industry. But you don't get there unless you have a playful mindset, unless you're adopting what you see from kids where they look at an everyday object like a box, like the classic box, and don't just see something for carrying items from one place to another, but a house, a rocket ship, a car. That's the same spirit that we need to bring as designers to the world we see and not be okay with everything we see as it is. Like, hopefully no one's okay with the world right now the way it is. There's so much room for improvement. But I think as designers, again, you know, it's not enough to dream that and think that.

40:38You need to do it too. So how do we feel empowered? How do we feel the agency to change what's around us? And I think that's part of it is one, it's like, yeah, let's convince people that play is important, but it's also expanding the definition of what play is. So yes, all this reminds me that play is important, It reminds me that joy is part of it too, but it's much broader. It's how we approach our work. It is acknowledging that there's more possibilities and what's obvious right in front of us. And it's taking the time to, as you said, to diverge and to get curious, to not rush to an answer, but to allow ourselves to sit in that ambiguity for a little bit longer.

41:13And it's also true for leadership. So I think moving into my new position, question was like, what is the right structure? Do you want a co-managing director? Do you want a leadership team? There's so many different ways you can structure your team. And I was like, you know what? Do I need to make a decision today? Can I just sit in this for a while? I want to try it out. I want to see what this is like. I want to get to know people first. And that's, again, that's sitting in ambiguity for a little while. And I think if you can do that, you get to better solutions. Because oftentimes when you rush to a solution.

41:51It's what's been done before. It's the most obvious answer. It's not acknowledging all the complexities that are present. And if you embrace that and just say, you know, that's part of it. And this is also part of play. So child's play is often mistaken as making things easier. Play is all about embracing the complex. Play is about saying like, okay, there are constraints. There's things that are hard. Bring it on. That actually makes it more fun. Like that's why, I mean, one of my favorite games as a kid was lava. Any normal person just walks across the floor. But a kid, to make it more fun, says you can't touch the floor and then hops from sofa to chair to dresser.

42:33But it's that complexity that the friction you add, which I'm going to say that because I talked to so many people who were like, remove all the friction. I'm like, wait, why? Sometimes there's good friction because friction is what makes experiences meaningful, makes them thoughtful. that elicit your creativity, that build connection between people. And so I caution when people say, let's take all the friction out. Of course, there are moments like when I want to just get through the grocery store, please make it as quick and easy as possible. But there's other times that friction is important and play is one of the things that best illustrates that because there's so many examples of play where you add crazy rules and constraints all in service of making it more worth doing.

43:16I 100 % agree with you. And I love when we came to visit IDEO with our wonderful design leaders cohort, you made us play. And it was actually such a fun exercise where you took us through this process of making something more difficult and it actually became more fun. And it was such an interesting way to, again, illustrate your point, but also really made me pause and think how many things in life we don't question and try to optimize and make faster and miss out on all the joy that is there, whether it is in very kind of basic day-to-day life or whether it is in more, again, career challenges, leadership challenges, or innovation within the companies, Do we miss out on opportunities to have fun and build something really incredible in the process, or we just try to find the solution as quick as we can?

44:19Saying that, I can imagine that during the time of uncertainty, that I think we can call now the time of uncertainty, but there is always uncertainty about something in the world. the first thing that people stop doing is being this kind of divergent thinker, thinking about all possibilities. And we know that about our brain. If we are in distress, we stop diverging and being creative. We try to kind of narrow down our focus and just fix whatever is broken or get to the thing as fast as possible. So I can imagine businesses go through the same motion of when the industry is uncertain, and there are so many changes, then it's just natural that no one wants to play, no one wants to experiment.

45:07Everyone tries to predict the future, come to the most likely scenario that will happen and prepare for this scenario rather than go into all sorts of possibilities. And maybe one of these things will work out. So is it easy for you to communicate to business leaders about play and do you find them resisting and how do you go about it? It's really hard. Yeah. And I think we all feel it right now. There is this pressure of just deliver results, just deliver so we stay alive tomorrow. And that pressure makes us very short-sighted. It makes people more hesitant to dream big, to think in ways that are more creative and further out.

45:50And the only problem is, is that it becomes very tiresome. I think that's why so many people burn out right now is it is really hard when all you're doing is fighting fires and plugging holes and it will keep you afloat in the short time, but also is it enough? And sometimes it just takes a bigger leap to actually be like, all right, let's switch out the whole boat. Let's try a new direction. And it's really hard to do both. So I think it's good to balance it. it's good to be like okay yeah you know we need to keep doing this thing the way we're doing it because it's a tried and true but can you also send other people out or can you divide your time where you're also thinking about what's different and new you don't have to completely abandon path and go one direction and be like oh i don't know if that's right it can be really tricky as well so i think it's like figuring out what's what's again the balance how do you not make it like you you have to go completely off in this new direction that's scary and different.

46:51I can't hold on to what you're doing, but how do you start letting little pieces of your group, your team, or even yourself experiment a little bit and try something else? Because I think when it's a poster, I remember when one of my first jobs, when I was working at VTech, which was a toy company, it's still a toy company. One of the lead people had a poster on his door that was a dinosaur skeleton that said evolve or die. And that's constantly in my head is that you have to make that larger evolution. Things change. And if you're looking at the thing right in front of you, you miss the bigger opportunities.

47:24And so sometimes if you can do that, if you can do the leap into something bigger, it buys you time. And as a leader, that's one of the things I'm trying to do the most is how do I buy my team time and space? Because again, when you have that time and space, you can sit on ambiguity longer. You have time to be creative. If you're constantly fighting the next thing, you don't have time to reflect. You You get very reactive, but it's tiring. And at some time, you're going to lose steam and you're not going to be able to keep that going. So that's why I think innovation is so important. Like you need to be able to leapfrog.

47:56You need to buy your group space so that you're not constantly making incremental changes, but actually do something that gets you further out in front of the crowd and then allows you the room to continue to be creative, continue to push forward. So that's one way I look at it is that, yeah, I get it. It's important to play. You need to feel safe. And if you don't feel safe, it's very hard to get into that mindset. But as a leader, how do you help bring that safety back? How do you say like, yeah, no, this is important. This is what we need to do. But let's also remember, like, let's carve out some time to think differently, to have a few experiments in the mix alongside getting work done.

48:32Did you find any particular way of explaining what you've just said to the companies that may be resistant to do that? is it again going back to the numbers the statistics that you need to show how this could improve their revenue if they only cover a little bit of budget to more play or is it the language they use I think one of the tips ages ago someone gave me is not using the word design when you want to talk about design but because as soon as you distract people with words they don't know what they mean they just go into wrong directions but if you say exactly what you're trying to do is just in the words they understand whether it is spreadsheets and operations and results and delivering.

49:15They're like, yeah, yeah, we understand what you're trying to do. So are there any particular tips that you have for us who want to convince board members, senior business stakeholders to carve time for creativity and play? One, show them ID.I.Q. I think that helps. Like here's some obvious, here's some evidence. And again, I just keep pointing to that because I love that we took the time to figure out what is some of the ROI of this because that was the question that I was always hitting my head against is what is the ROI of play? So hard to prove. One of my side projects is I'm writing a book about play and it's so fascinating because the whole journey itself is playful for me.

49:53I mean, it's bad in that, as I said, you don't want something that's fun and playful to end. And so I was like, I don't know, am I ever going to get this on shelf? Like that's what I got to execute and just get it out there because I want people to read it at some point. But for me, it's been like this whole journey of like, yeah, what do I want to learn about? What do I want to get curious about? But I've gone back and looked at play across nature, like throughout history. And there's so much evidence of how play is critical. Play, again, helps us deal with uncertainty. Animals, when they play with each other, mock fights and things like playing in that safe environment where they're not necessarily going to be killed, but do have a foe who's a friend who is introducing uncertainty, helping them adapt their way of working.

50:37That's what leads to eventual survival. I think we've also seen with culture and humanity, so much of what we do through play is what survives over time. It's how we keep our cultures going. If you think about like capoeira and how that was used to with keep ways of defending oneself alive over time, but do it through art, fables that keep morals going, games that do the same thing. I mean, play has served us so well over and over again. And some of those aren't things that people go to immediately. But one thing that we can look at is hopefully most of us played as children and we can still remember that.

51:17So I do like to take people back to that and being like, well, play is how we learn how to relate to each other. Play is how we learned what we could be good at. Play is how we learn to not be afraid. And again, like talking to someone and telling them that is very different than having them feel it. So, you know, we do exercises like having people imagine what it's like to blast off and go to the moon. We have them take a journey to the moon. And then we share how adults are very task-oriented. So when I say like, go to the moon, they go to the moon, they come back. They open their eyes right away.

51:57Kids will blast off and they will wander and they'll float through space and they'll end up on Mars and they'll, you know, meet space creatures. But it makes for a much more interesting journey and it leaves them with more ideas of where they go from there. And sometimes just doing that one activity and having people remember how they would have maybe approached this as a child versus how they do it now as an adult and realizing how allowing for a little bit more time for divergence gets them to more interesting places. I found that just something like that will get people to change their minds.

52:28And instead of people like shooting down every idea, they'll actually hold for a bit longer and you'll see them start pitching in with new ideas. And so I think even just reminding them that this is something that serves so well as children can be very, very powerful. That is powerful. And you're right. I think we forget how curious and playful we naturally are. And I suppose keeping that mindset is a special skill. And again, I've been lucky to meet people like Michael Wolff, who is 90 something years old, and he's obviously an incredible designer and founder of Wolf Orleans, but he's playful every single day.

53:06I think he's more playful than any 20-year-old I've ever met in his 90s. And I understand that this is something you have to cultivate if you are a creative person, to keep these new ideas coming, to make sure that you actually come up with something that no one else done before and actually change something for the better. You mentioned culture a few times, and IDEO is known for incredible culture and, again, being in your office and seeing, first of all, how incredible the space is with so much light, with so much color, with so many materials and every corner has different stories about it.

53:47I think one of your colleagues shared that the tiles near the sink are done by this tile company that's just down the road. It's just every single piece is so thought through. And you have lunches as a team on certain days. So I would love to hear a bit more about how do you cultivate this incredible space for your team that allows this safety and playfulness and creativity, but also has constraints so people do produce work? Yeah. Well, again, I think curiosity experimentation are such huge mindsets and tie in with the play mindset. So you can't help but be curious when you're here because we're working on so many different projects across so many different industries.

54:31I love just wandering into project rooms like, oh, what are you doing? What's this challenge? What's this project? What are we dealing with here? There's no shortage of questions when you walk through the doors. And then our projects too is about always learning depending on whatever industry where we're diving into. And then experimentation. You might've noticed there's a lot of concrete floors here. Same thing at the D School at Stanford. And I think this story at the D School is really telling because when the D School is being built, and David Kelly has a hand in both, so it's not a surprise that there's so much similarity between the D School and idea.

55:06But the D School, they were building out the building and they had the concrete. And I think the designers, architects were like, okay, well, what do we do about carpeting? And they're like, leave it off. Like, what do you mean? It's like, every building always has carpeting. Like, what do you mean no carpeting? They're like, no, no, no, we don't want the carpeting. And it's a very deliberate act because the concrete idea gives you permission to experiment and to make things and to drop things. If you drop paint or glue on a rug, so much harder to clean up. If you drop it on concrete, you just like wipe it up.

55:36It's not a big deal. So it gives you permission to get messy and try a few different things. I think I've heard that at Stanford, once other departments saw that the d.school didn't have carpeting and the reasoning, the intention for it, they started asking to not have carpeting in their buildings too. So I think it was catching. And the other thing that you'll see is our toy inventors have all these bins of materials. So it's everything from engines and belts and magnets to old parts of toys. So we have, I think, five different bins of Barbies from pristine Barbies to Barbie parts. But if you have an idea, You can just grab all these pieces, start gluing them together, make whatever it is you imagine.

56:21So that's like the, like, don't just sit in your head, make it. Like Denny Boyle, he's one of the founding people because David, of course, started IEO because he wanted to work with his friends. So one of IEO's friends from the product design program at Stanford, we call it Boyle's Law, which is different from the one in science. But his Boyle's Law has always come to a meeting with a prototype. always come with something that you've already started to build and to make that's tangible, that people can react to. As you said earlier, Ekaterina, the power of that prototype is so important. I think the other thing about the culture here is to not be afraid to show half done work, right?

56:58Like it's about the process. It's about showing things early to get feedback. And that means not just holding your breath and waiting and just showing the final presentation to our clients even, because it's too late to change it then. And if you're on the wrong track, you've just wasted all this time. So we believe in showing ideas early, even if it's a rough foam core prototype, because it'll get people talking. It'll get people wanting to invest in building the idea with you to co-design it with you. And so that's everything from, yes, like foam core models are now a lot of 3D printed models to rooms you go to with post-its that are that are still in the process of synthesis because it invites conversation, invites people come in and it also decreases that fear that you have to produce something that's perfect.

57:45That again, the journey is just as important and that you can invite other people into that journey with you. These are such great examples and I love the concrete floor story. I never questioned it, but now that you said it, this is brilliant. And are there any personal rituals that you have to keep your own creativity to your life? Before you get into a certain project, what do you do to make sure that you get into the flow? Yeah, I have a few things I like to do. I also have two kids. I have a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old. I also have a wonderful husband. I finally talked to the kids about the kids a lot.

58:21So I was like, I want to mention Ryan is also incredible too. My daughter and I have a ritual where everywhere we go, we just kind of look into the world for things that remind us of something or we try to see things again for more than face value. It's a folder we keep and we also text the pictures back and forth. It's just called street doodles. And it comes from like just like, you know, when you look at clouds and you see a picture in the clouds, but we might see like a paint splotch or a piece of gum on the road. Things that people might look at and actually like, oh my gosh, that's like litter or that's dirty.

58:55But we'll like just do a quick sketch on our phones and be like, it's a dog. It's a chariot. It's, you know, this really cool dragon. But I think that's just neat to continue to push on, like, don't look at things and take things at face value. How do you find joy in everything? How do you also pay attention to your environment? So when I'm walking to work, it gets me to actually like soak in what I'm seeing and it gets my creativity moving. So by the time I walk into work, I've already like come up with a bunch of ideas, even if it was all these random street doodles that my daughter and I are sending back and forth.

59:28And again, I love that because it's a connection with my daughter, who's a teenager, a freshman in high school. I want to keep that going. I want her to also feel the joy and the beauty around her when I know that high school is a really stressful time of life. And yeah, to just keep looking at things and seeing possibilities. So anyways, that's one thing I do. It's little, but it's super fun. And then another friend from high school I'd lost touch with, but I saw her recently. She sent me one the other day. So I love that it's catching. She's like, Michelle, I saw this. Here's my doodle. So I hope more people do that.

1:00:02This is a brilliant example. And I love that system of getting you into right way of thinking. I think there was some research about the brain and how it works. And essentially, our brain likes more of something. So if we start focusing on certain things, it's like, okay, I understood the task. I'll do more of this. If you start focusing on sad things, negative things, it'll be like, okay, okay, I got the brief. It's this that we are doing today. And in the same way, if you start thinking about the joyful things or curious things or strange things or whatever, the metaphors and the unusuals, then again, the brain's like, okay, I got it.

1:00:43This is what we need to do today and then it kind of eases you into the flow of this creative thinking play and everything and problem solving through a different lens that we really need day-to-day as creatives and designers and I feel like this is probably a very lost art for many of us and especially for the new generation who grows up with technology to actually step away and go into all sorts of weird places and find things that no one else is looking for. So I love this example. Thank you for sharing. We cannot avoid our favorite topic. You mentioned a lot of time AI. How is it you approaching the AI revolution?

1:01:27In which level do you use or avoid it? Do you use it during the creative process? Yeah, I mean, AI for us is another tool. And of course, we're excited to check out what tools are out there. I think it's important to keep that perspective. That's one tool in an entire toolbox. It just happens to be the shiniest, newest one right now. I think the way IDEO has always acted is we want to create the best product experiences possible. And we start with what people need and then look to what's the best way to implement that. So if AI makes sense, use it. But if not, we should feel free to use something else.

1:02:03Actually, one example of this, AI is just an evolution. There's always emerging tech. but we worked with sesame workshop really early on and we made an app called elmo calls it's still out there you can call elmo and then elmo comes on and he sings you a song or he you know tells a joke or even better like parents can trigger specific calls that elmo like coax you to use the bathroom or calm you down if you're going to go visit the doctors and when we came up with the app it's like you're going to call elmo uh one thought was like oh do we have voice rec do we use some primitive form of AI. This app's been out for over 10 years, so not AI like we know it today, to have it feel like Elmo's actually talking to you.

1:02:43Of course, we prototyped it and we brought it to kids and we tried out early on. And what we found was that actually trying to listen for a kid's voice and respond, kids don't just necessarily respond in a normal time. So it was really awkward sometimes. But what worked was that kids FaceTime their grandparents all the time. So they're used to seeing their face in the corner. And that makes them feel like they have an interaction. So all we did was turn on the front-facing camera so that the kids could see themselves while Elmo was on the screen. And that made them feel like they were having a great conversation.

1:03:18We didn't need to spend all this time figuring out AI and voice rec. We just turned on the camera and we diverted all the rest of the budget to making more videos so that there was more content, more songs, more ways that we could help kids through tough situations. So I think that I love that example because it's like, yes, we have tools and now we have AI, which is a very powerful tool. But if it doesn't make sense, don't use it. Because in that case, it would introduce all kinds of new problems too, like privacy, like tracking a kid's voice, AI possibly going off the rails and telling a kid something we don't want them to be hearing from Elmo.

1:03:53So I think don't always jump to what the technology is, but of course we're playing with it. We're experimenting with it. We're doing all kinds of fun stuff with AI because we need to understand what the tool is. We want to break the tool. We want to figure out what the limits are so that when the right occasion is to use it, we bring it into our work. And then of course we're using our everyday processes too. Like it gets us to tangibility faster. So, and it gives us some more interesting tangibility. So I think even with proposals, where instead of a doc, do you create an interactive website that's really interesting, that gives people a better feel for what we can deliver, what we can do.

1:04:27When we are, yeah, trying to bring more tangibility to concepts that we're putting in front of people that we're doing research with to react to, are there instances where we want to make that prototype more real? Not always, though. And this is actually a caution. Years ago, IDEO talked about three R's of prototyping, which are rough, rapid, right? because we want to emphasize that a prototype is not just the beautiful end product that you present. Prototyping is building to think. It is servicing questions you didn't think to ask. It's about challenging your assumptions. So you actually want it to be rough because, again, if you show up with a janky film horror prototype, you invite people to give you feedback.

1:05:07You invite people to jump in and want to build with you. If you show them something finished, they're like, you're done already. I'll give you a little bit of incremental feedback, but I'm not going to tell you your idea is wrong or you're on the wrong track. Like you don't get the right kind of feedback. Rapid is because you want to get lots of iteration. And the right is about being very specific about what question you're trying to ask and then doing a prototype that answers that. So if you're trying to figure out form factor, that's one type of prototype. If you're trying to figure out interaction, that's a different prototype.

1:05:34If you're trying to figure out how someone will react to this idea under certain emotions, that's a whole nother project that might call for role play. So I think that is so important. And that's actually something that worries me in today's day and age is when people think that AI gets into the final answer. It's the same problem of why we had the three R's before. AI is not just the prototype that gets you the final deliverable. AI should be the tool that helps you build the thing, to iterate, to get feedback, to pull in other perspectives. And so I think it's really important to remember that.

1:06:08It's a great tool, but how are we using it in a way that's really thoughtful and not using it when it doesn't make sense. Thank you for sharing your perspective. And I love also the example about having rough prototypes or rather focusing on right, rapid and rough, because I agree with you. I think when people see too much of a Polish thing, they're so afraid to touch it. And I think that's a lot of challenges that designers often have, that design used to be very untouchable because only designers could edit, only designers could do something. And I feel like now with so many tools being very collaborative where anyone can jump in and start editing and changing, it's an interesting shift that we always design leaders, creative leaders need to have to include more people in this and not see it as this kind of a shiny thing and involve people in different ways where they can edit, comment, change things.

1:07:05and then it's our job to interpret what they mean by those changes, how do they interact with our prototypes and what they actually want and how we can guide this vision. As you mentioned already how your team is using AI, another thing that keeps coming up and kept coming up in questions people submitted is how to make sure you don't lose this sense of curiosity, wonder and play as you start using AI. Again, you gave a great example of yourself, what you do as your daily practice or just in general approach to life, but you guide teams and there will be new generations of designers coming in who just so used to the tools that we have that give an answer straight away that are very fast.

1:07:47So how do you cultivate this training for everyone's imagination and brain among your team? Yeah, and I think it's possible through AI too, right? It's just like, how do you not take what it gives you as the final answer? How do you get curious and probe on it further? I mean, you can go through some really interesting rabbit holes with AI and you keep asking, well, why? Or, you know, is there another way? I think also using AI to challenge you. So I think that's one of the most interesting use cases where you like, hey, here's, for example, I don't know, this is a brief that I'm writing up. Where am I not being expansive enough?

1:08:26Where am I being too constrictive? What would you do to make this more interesting? I think that's using AI in a different way. Not for the answer, but actually to challenge you and to be a sparring partner. So I think that is intriguing. And I would say it helps many of us who don't have certain skill sets do things that we couldn't do otherwise. So suddenly being able to build a website, being able to quickly generate ideas visually if we're not, you know, a visual designer. A couple of our alums went off and they started a new company called Open Studio. And it's an AI tool that's made for designers.

1:09:07Like you can go in there and you can have it generate concepts, but then you can also just like redline it and have it get rid of this feature, add this here. and it does that. And a lot of us have just been playing around with it. And it's so fun. And I've even taken concepts. There's one concept. There was a kid's app that we were playing with a while back and we never made it, but our designer had made some initial drawings and it was this concept called Playhouse where you could tap and add rooms and then characters would come in and have it. It was a little bit like Sims, but I had these still drawings and I could put it in Open Studio and I could just be like, all right, well, add a few more rooms.

1:09:44Turn it from night to day. change the seasons, animate the characters, add this character. And things that I would need the whole team to do before, I could just make come to life, which was really fun to be able to experiment and play with that. But that was play, right? Like that's like when you can get into it and you are excited to try things that might not be possible otherwise. And in those ways, it kind of frees your imagination, your curiosity, and your creativity to actually move faster. So I think it can work both ways, but the caution is just like, don't take everything it spits out and be like, I'm done.

1:10:15Continue to bring your own perspectives into it and figure out like, where could you push it further? Where could it push you further? This is brilliant advice to actually challenge AI and break it and be playful with it. I think it's definitely a different way to interact with it. Monique is asking if organizations with low design maturity, especially when teams are primarily dev-led and no established design leadership, What sorts of practical steps can someone take to ensure design has a seat at the table? I think one of the big pieces is to remind people what they're building and why. I think that's a big part of design is to give purpose to what it is we're building.

1:10:58So you mentioned that I boomeranged out of IDEO at one point, which was an interesting thing. This is, again, saying yes and just seeing where it takes me. But at that point, my manager had been like, what if we took the IDEO design process? And instead of just doing client work, we tackle a challenge that you're curious about and we pitch it to VCs. So I was like, you know, I was worried about the obesity epidemic. And I was like, well, how do we help people be more mindful about their eating? Purposely chose mindful because I definitely liked indulge and I didn't feel like I could tell people what healthy eating was.

1:11:30But I could say mindful eating, like how let's interpret confusing nutrition labels. And this was 2009. So we were just getting into digital. It was actually one of the first digital things I'd ever worked on. So yeah, got a chance to grow a dev team and learn all about Agile and Scrum. But it's interesting because the CEO who came in said, you guys are coming from IDEO. You have one of the most creative cultures. In addition to your roles, the other co-founder and I, in addition to your roles as head of product and head of business, you guys are also chief culture officers. And one of the things we did was each Scrum, we themed.

1:12:09So we'd be like, this scrum is riboflavin. So it wanted to help us understand more about nutrition. But we're like, we chose this. And I might get this wrong because it's been years, but it'd be things like, okay, riboflavin or whatever this nutrient is, is all about building the structures. It's about pulling together the ground layer of our cells that we can then build on top of. And that's a metaphor for what we're trying to do right now in this sprint. But it helped people just get perspective of, again, like, what's a bigger reason for doing this? And I think that's what design does. It helps pull us out of the weeds sometimes.

1:12:48Be like, we're implementing, but why are we implementing? What's the purpose? And once you know that, you can get to like, well, if I know that North Star of what we're trying to get to, I have a little bit more freedom to suggest, is there a better way to get there? what's the right path. Like the purpose kind of switches up what the task is from just doing what I'm asked to do to feeling a little bit agency of like, okay, if I know what the greater goal is, do I see another way? And do I feel like there's permission for me to share that? Is there permission for me to switch it up if I see something that could improve this process?

1:13:22This is brilliant example and also so much fun. Would you give any like maybe a tangible first step that someone could do? So let's say someone does identify where design can bring the value and kind of sees the bigger picture. Is it coming with a presentation? These are my thoughts about this problem. Is it grabbing a coffee with someone? How would you start slowly approaching this shift and those conversations about what design brings to the table? Especially where, again, it's not necessarily the conversations that are already happening. So one of my favorite ways to shake things up is to bring in the customer.

1:14:05So who are you actually building for? And it could be someone outside of your company, or it might be people within your organization, like who are the people you're trying to serve? And getting those stories in front of people, like actually, what are people facing? Why are we doing this? And I think that changes people's perspectives. Because again, I feel like there's so many recurring themes, but as humans, we want to help other people. So if we understand who is actually the end recipient of the thing that we're building, and we can understand how we can actually make that person's life better, I think that changes, again, our perspective and our drive for getting something done, right?

1:14:42It's not like, let me just get this done so I can leave at five. It's like, I'm building this for someone. Someone's going to have to interface with the things I'm making. Can I make something better for them? And it warms my heart when we have a client come in. I can think of one meeting in particular several years back. And they came in talking about their market and the demographic they were serving and the size of it. And it was very ambiguous. And then we came in with broader research. Like, okay, we talked to like five families. We talked to this, this, this. Billy, when he comes home, he does this and he goes through this whole thing.

1:15:21And this is where they're meeting complications. And partway through this meeting, there was a switch. And this executive started saying, well, because Billy needs this. I want this for Billy. He started using a name. And that's when I knew we had him, is that suddenly he understood that there was a human on the other end of what he was building and not just a market. It wasn't just dollars. It was a person whose life he was affecting. And so effective. And also that helps because it's not like I'm telling you to do this. It's like, we talked to all these people, like real people who will be using your product or service.

1:15:57This is what they said. These are the challenges they're facing. These are the dreams that they hold. That's important. This is so cool. It's bringing the human back into human-centered design. That's what gives a different perspective to businesses. Wonderful example. Thank you so much for Michelle and we are about to close this session. We are out of time and I have a few last questions that we always ask our lovely guests on our podcast. And the question I have is a philosophical question. If you could change one thing in the world, Michelle, what would it be? Oh my gosh, only one thing. We've talked a lot about curiosity.

1:16:41I think curiosity is at the heart of it. I think if people are more curious, it could change so much, right? Like, so if I think of one thing that had a wide ranging impact, if we thought to ask more questions, if we thought to look around us and see beyond our own thoughts, if we thought less about our own inhibitions and our own fears and looked at what other people need, how can I help someone else? One more book recommendation, another IDEO alum wrote a book called Seek, which is all about curiosity. And it's such a beautiful book because he talks about how divisive the world is right now and how he forced himself into situations that were uncomfortable for him, but with a mindset of curiosity and how he found that we have more similarities than differences.

1:17:28When you take the time to really get to know people and get beyond political ideology and some of the things that get shouted the loudest and that we get labeled as, but when you actually start asking the questions of like, well, why do you believe that? Sometimes you get to the same fundamental values that we all hold, but based on what we're seeing, what we're understanding, what we're hearing, it manifests in different ways. So I think that's the big thing is like, how do we get curious? Because it will affect so much of how we see the world, our own perspectives, how much joy we can feel personally, how we interact with people closest to us, but also I think ramifications of even beyond that?

1:18:08Like, this could be exponential. Maybe we can change the whole world just with a little bit more curiosity. This is a beautiful answer. And Michelle, yes to more curiosity. And I love how you also describe it as the way to solve so many fundamental problems and also have better conversations with people about things that we might disagree, but we can be curious about and actually try to understand, which is a much better way to live our lives. What guests we should bring next, Michelle? Who would you recommend? Who do you feel like we should all learn from? Do you have someone you feel like our design leaders community would really enjoy learning from?

1:18:49Well, I guess if you want to build right off of what I just left off on, bring Scott Shigeoka. He's the one who wrote Seek. And he is currently in a van driving all around the United States getting curious. and I think he has some amazing stories to tell of what he's finding and it's so incredibly heartwarming and so reaffirming to remember that we all have a shared humanity and we need that message today more than ever. I love it and I love the idea of driving a van across the country and actually talking to people. This sounds like such a fun and definitely a curious thing to do. thank you so much Michelle for sharing this time with us and sharing your not just approach to work and leadership but also to life and I definitely leave this conversation feeling more optimistic and joyful and looking forward to supporting things on the streets that look weird and drawing pictures and just bringing that to everyday life and work so thank you for for sharing your thinking, your curiosities, your approaches, and your advice with all of us.

1:20:07Really, really appreciate it. Well, thank you. Such a wonderful way to start my day. I really enjoyed the conversation. And thank you all for listening and for asking so many great questions. And I'm looking forward to checking out IDEO's IQ. And thanks everyone for joining. if you're interested in everything that michelle does ido.com has the information about the play lab the wonderful work that ido does that michelle does and i'm looking forward to downloading ido iq from their website and hearing more about that if you're interested about what futureland academy does and meeting and learning from incredible people like michelle how to get design to the boardrooms, how to communicate with C-level people and understand finance and operations.

1:20:56Check out our executive program for design leaders, which Michelle was part of this year. And we also had a surprise visit from our interaction with David Cayley, the legend, the legend. On a good day. Came on a good day and he shared his wisdom as well. So I feel like it always feels special to be surrounded by people who just seen it all and still curious, stay curious, no matter what age they are. So thanks everyone for joining. Please share anything you found interesting, provocative, or maybe just helpful with the community around the world. Feel free to tag us. We always love knowing what resonated with you so we can bring more relevant conversations to all of you and more wonderful guests like Michelle.

1:21:42Anything else, Michelle, you want to mention before we close down anywhere? Anything people should check out where they find you or anything else you want to end with? Yeah. No, just thank you for so much for coming. Probably the best place to keep up on my random thoughts as I continue to get curious would just be on my LinkedIn page. So check that out. But otherwise, this was such a pleasure. Really enjoyed being here with all of you. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone. and until next time. Bye.