Mentorship and Learning for What’s Next

0:00As a society, we haven't really processed what pandemic did to the social psychology of people, because not only it gave birth to new communication formats, but it also broke down a lot of communication structures for what in-person communication used to look like and what online communication used to look like. In the past couple of years, there has been an expansion of what hybrid mentorship looks like. There has to be a fine balance between being more digital, but also avoiding that digital exhaustion.

0:37Amanda Schneider:Welcome to Design Nerds Anonymous, the podcast that sparks curiosity at the intersection of business and design. I'm your host, Amanda Schneider, founder and president at ThinkLab, speaker on TED.com, and now author of the new book with Wiley, Work for What's Next. In this episode, we're here to talk about mentorship and learning. Because here's the real question for companies that want to stay relevant. What ensures your talent keeps pace with change? It's not just technology. It's not just hiring. It's also how you transfer knowledge, how you build confidence, and how you prepare people to lead, possibly sooner than they expect it.

1:22Amanda Schneider:We know that baby boomers are retiring. My generation, Gen X, is smaller than theirs. We can't possibly fill their shoes. So that means that millennial and Gen Z must step up into leadership faster than other generations before them. And if our mentorship models don't evolve, institutional knowledge will retire with those baby boomers. So to unpack this issue today, I'll be joined by two leaders who sit at the center of this conversation in the interior design industry. First up is Elizabeth Mejia, president of IIDA New York, which is one of the largest chapters of the International Interior Design Association, and also the largest geographic concentration of designers in the country.

2:10Amanda Schneider:Outside of her role with IIDA, she also leads interiors in New York for HKS, a firm that blends design strategy, research, and social impact to create spaces that shape experiences and communities. She'll also be joined by Parithi Chawla, a design professional, WLAP, and IIDA New York's Vice President of Student Development. She's also a Gen Z designer herself, but she's already helping to shape the next generation's path into the profession. You'll hear from her a real lived perspective on what learning, mentorship, and leadership looks like for emerging talent today. Together, we explore how mentorship must decentralize to survive, why asking better questions may matter even more than having better answers today?

3:03Amanda Schneider:And what it will take to build adaptable, equitable learning cultures in a world that won't stop changing. Here's my conversation with Elizabeth and Pariti. I would love to start with brief introductions professionally and also your roles with IIDA. So Pariti, maybe we'll start with you. Tell us your name, the work you do in a few words, and maybe one word to describe the future of mentorship and learning, given the path that we're on today. I'm Pariti Chavla. I'm a design professional at TPG Architecture. I'm a recent grad. I am also the VP of Student Development at IID in New York. One word for the future of learning and mentorship, decentralization.

3:46Having different sources of learning and having different sources of mentorship and similar for mentors and mentees, having different sources of learning and almost sharing the responsibility. Absolutely.

3:59Amanda Schneider:And can I ask, are you a Gen Zer? You said you're a recent graduate. Yes, I am. Okay. I love that we have some Gen Zers on the podcast. So Elizabeth, you want to introduce yourself and give us your one word? I'm Elizabeth Mejia. I am the current chapter president for IIDA New York. Professionally, I am our office design leader for interiors at HKS in New York. My one word for the future of mentorship would be partnership. Partnership is really that reciprocal growth, being able to mentor, having mentorship flow in all directions, but then seeking mentorship as partners. It's not a imbalance in level and skills or how much years of experience you have.

4:45Kind of going on what Preeti was saying, it's kind of fluid in the sense that, you know, I can learn from someone below me. They have just as much to offer. And that's something that I would hope in a mentorship that that partnership is we're both learning and achieving something from all different directions.

5:06Amanda Schneider:I love how those work together to decentralization and partnership. And I want to dive into some of the concepts of the book and really hear what stuck out to you. I sent you each a couple of chapters. There's a whole chapter on mentorship, a whole chapter on learning. Pariti, I love that you're coming at this from a Gen Z perspective. And Elizabeth, I love that you have such reach into your firm and thoughts around our industry and how we have historically handled maybe mentorship and learning versus maybe what we need to look for in the future. What would you say, Elizabeth, I'm going to start with you on this one.

5:37Amanda Schneider:What would you say is one core idea from these two chapters on mentorship and learning that maybe aligns well with what you're seeing and how would you build on it? I'd say the one core idea that really resonated with me that I try to bring into my work is asking better questions, not just within projects, asking questions, but just in general, there is an inherent now of connecting the why. There has to be a why behind something and not getting stuck into, I'm teaching this because this is just how it's always been done. But challenging those questions on the why and being able to influence or flip an approach.

6:23Amanda Schneider:Learning historically has been about knowing, maybe memorizing answers, going to a specific training session. But in the future, it's going to be more about asking the right questions to get to answers. And to me, that's not just about AI. It is also about how do I make sure if I'm a manager that my team is not always having to come to me for the answers, that the more questions I ask of them, the more it's going to activate them. So I love that you picked up on that. I think that's a pretty big flip for our industry. Would you agree? Yeah, I would. And I think it's also to the asking those questions of really leaning into what are you trying to understand?

7:00You know, it's not just like, what can I do or what's next? It's the, why am I doing this? Or have you thought of something this way? You know, as a leader asking those questions to someone that I am trying to mentor or a junior of coming to me is like me seeking to understand. And so having those questions in mind of seeking to understand versus like just seeking to know, asking, you know, did you think of it this way or walk me through your process or what did you try out? So then I can ask better questions or they can understand from me. Brady, how would you add to that? I think the one thing that I found really interesting in the book is that you broke things down into myths and ideas.

7:48So I think I'm going to start with a myth that you talked about of having only seasoned employees being mentors. And then you talk about this idea of sharing the load of mentorship, which I find really interesting because in my practice, like the two years I've been in the industry, I found it really helpful to, you know, going up to people who have been through similar problems that I am going through right now and just asking them questions. And having that peer mentorship is really helpful And also really important because it provides a safe space for me to go and ask really stupid and ridiculous questions, but also getting like really nice answers.

8:33And I think something that we also do at IIDA, similar to having that sharing the load and sharing the mentorship load, is with our student uplift program, which Elizabeth actually worked on. And now I get to take it forward is where we basically put the triads of some A &D mentors and some emerging professionals and students together. So they all can work together and ask each other questions and have basically giving students a platform to have their safe space in the industry before they even enter the industry. There is often a gap between what you're learning in school and how that is being translated as an emerging professional.

9:18So I think I really enjoyed reading about sharing the mentorship load and having not all the senior designers, but also intermediate designers put weighing in and helping you out and help you grow as a junior. IIDA is really about community. It's our design community that brings together everyone in the industry, whether you're a designer, industry partner, a rep, a manufacturer, anything, even looking at who else our partners are from trades to contractors, all that we're all involved here. And IDA is International Inter-Design Association. And it is the commercial association. So we really focus on the commercial spaces.

10:06What matters to us, and I think IIDA in general, is finding your community, how we can bring people together, how it's impactful, how it's meaningful, and how we can best support our members in all steps of their growth.

10:20Amanda Schneider:And I love that you guys are, you know, living, breathing, walking, talking examples of this. So, Faridhi, I love that you brought up, you know, that you're already a mentor. You're two years into your career. And I think that's something we've heard is that a lot of Gen Zers, they don't see themselves as the junior. They're ready to also contribute to the next generation, be it students or someone who's maybe only got one year of experience right behind them. We're also hearing a lot about burnout. I think that there is a reputation for the youngest generation that talks about burnout. However, even from our senior participants in a lot of our Think Lab research.

10:54Amanda Schneider:research one quote from a research session that we did not too long ago with some senior leaders a very prominent firm leader of a very prominent firm said I used to spend about 25 percent of my time teaching and mentoring now it's 33 percent and I'm at a risk of burnout we're at this weird point where we are in industry obviously that it comes from a trade right like drawing and architecture and fabrics and finishes of interior design and touching and feeling things and collaborative creative processes. So we have grown up in an industry with a very analog first mentorship approach because, you know, apprenticeship models were watch me do, then you do.

11:34Amanda Schneider:Right. And so we hear from ThinkLab has a Gen Z cohort. We hear from them all the time. Things like, you know, mentorship is the biggest reason that I am told I have to be back in a physical office. Yet when I get there, nothing's changed. I'm just on Zoom in a different spots. Interesting tensions that I feel like our industry is probably not alone in feeling those. So I guess as you read through this, as you were thinking through all of your initiatives with the largest sector, the largest geographical conglomeration of interior designers, what is one way these chapters kind of challenge you to maybe think differently or maybe one new idea that you'll carry forward into your role in your firm or with IIDA?

12:13I think it was really interesting that you talked about like everything is digital first and everything used to be analog first and I think at least at TPG we have a lot of conversations about how are we working together with the digital aspects of design as well as the physical aspects of design because if you at the end of the day as you talked about we're kind of descended from a trade And design is a lot about the human experience and the human empathy and a lot goes into the design. I do think in the past couple of years, there has been an expansion of what hybrid mentorship looks like. But I think now that I am coming into the office a lot more, there is the aspect of like coming into the office and still being on the Zoom.

13:08And that's kind of counterproductive when I could just be sitting in my jammies and doing the same thing and nobody's disturbing me. And there are those days when I want to do that. And there are those days that my seniors want to do that, you know, because they have to get something done. And if they're spending a lot of their time answering my questions, they can't get their work done. So I guess there has to be that flexibility and tension, which you also talk about. But what I'm finding really interesting amongst my peers, at least here, and even my peers at different design firms, that it has been actually quite valuable coming in person and actually looking at analog stuff.

13:46I think a lot of what we're facing at the moment is digital exhaustion. I don't want to look at more screens. Like I want to avoid looking at screens. It's also really interesting because when I was in school, I used to like take notes on my iPad so I can go back and refer to them. And I was talking to my peers and a lot of them used to do the same thing. But now they're like, oh, actually, it's more fun to have a notebook because I can actually feel the texture of paper. and I feel like I'm doing something real. I think we have kind of surpassed the point that we're only looking at being flexible in a digital format.

14:26I think from where I come from and where a lot of my peers are coming from, it's nice to go to, you know, industry events or it's nice to have like people come in and talk about the different things that they do and the different products that they show. I think I really enjoy having conversations with them and you know sometimes we're just talking about a product and a principal from a different studio and we both like the same product and we're both talking about a product and we strike up a conversation and they tell me a story about a crazy project and I go like oh my god that's so cool I hope someday I get to do that there has to be a fine balance between being more digital but also avoiding that digital exhaustion my perspective on that one is actually kind of very similar, but flipped in the sense that it challenged me when you talked about mentorship beyond the physical space.

15:21To me, my inherent go-to is that in-person and it's just the overhearing of conversations. It's those moments that don't necessarily happen digitally because when we're getting online, you're getting on for an intentional reason. It's a meeting. It's very specific to what you're doing. It's less about that informal connection. I think the part that challenged me on that is how do you break down that formality within the digital realm of, you know, pretty text me all the time, everything from IIDA to work questions to anything. And, you know, I have other mentees that do the same, but it's that kind of approach of you have to let go of some of the formality to it.

16:11Like I can't imagine texting my boss when I was pretty's age or like sending a team's message like, hey, random question here. So it's like encouraging that mentorship that, you know, you have that personal connection when you're together, when you're, you know, collaborating and all of that. And to me, it's how do you in that digital realm break that formality to allow those avenues and those paths to come forward to encourage that mentorship when you're not together?

16:48Amanda Schneider:Yeah, I think it's a fine balance. I would agree. And I think what's so interesting even about this dialogue is, Bridi, I think your whole generation is really blind to their own physical digital fluidity. Oh, 100%. In my generation, like we just wouldn't have had these interactions. But, you know, you say that you want to be in person, but I think you're more likely to come in person because, you know, Elizabeth's going to be there. You've already been texting with her. You feel like you have this connection with her. Digital first is not digital only. Nobody wants to be digital only. There is a lack of humanity when we go fully, fully, fully only digital.

17:25Amanda Schneider:but ironically, you know, the more we connect digitally, the more physically we're going to want to show up because I feel like I know you and maybe it's that I know you have a chihuahua and I'm sending you a funny meme of a chihuahua and it says, I see you. And then you feel seen and you want to show up. This is still a major issue that our industry is having, especially when, you know, our main client is a product manufacturer. So all these reps that are trying to meet the pre-adhesives of the world and get connected with the next generation that was born into this industry during lockdowns of a pandemic, and they're struggling because they have all these amazing events, but nobody shows up.

18:06Amanda Schneider:I'm so proud to introduce Mannington Commercial and Cindy Coffin as a season 10 sponsor of Design Nerds Anonymous. Mannington and Cindy herself have been alongside me, not only in the research, but also in the writing of this book. Mannington Mannington Commercial has been a longtime sponsor of DNA. And one of the reasons I'm so proud of that is because DNA is the voice of our industry. I'm so thrilled that you've been a partner for so long on DNA. What are the changes that you think people are struggling to solve? It's a tough time to be a designer because you're dealing with a lot of information, but the responsibility lies on the shoulders of our industry for a great deal of what our future as a civilization looks like.

18:46What is Mannington Commercial doing to really address some of these challenges? We are committed to being fully transparent with everything that we do and the way that we do it. So that transparency really supports designers having access to all of the information that they need to make the right decisions clearly and plainly and transparently as possible.

19:09Amanda Schneider:If you could invite our podcast listeners, what would you say to them? I think human beings are the differentiator. So I invite you to connect with a Mannington commercial rep to learn more, not just about our new products, but how we think and how we show up for you as your design partner.

19:32Amanda Schneider:Preeti, I'm going to come to you again. What advice do you have to get your generation to show up? Because when I have these great conversations, I know that you value paper. I know that we know that from research we've done about print magazines. I know that you value FaceTime, but getting your generation to show up has been really challenging for an industry that's used to a lot of in real life community togetherness? It really takes an effort to round up people and go to an industry event. I think people's homes have really become their sanctuary. And I think it also like goes beyond just the industry.

20:08I think as a society, we haven't really processed what pandemic really did to the social psychology of people and how it translated into to communication, because not only it gave birth to new communication formats, but it also broke down a lot of communication structures for what in-person communication used to look like and what online communication used to look like. I think there's a lot of things that we're struggling with when it comes to not only reaching out to our mentors in the office, but also reaching out to our larger A &D mentors. I think what has been making us a little bit more comfortable is coming to work and having those interactions, even like an informal high with our studio principals or like different studio principals.

21:01And I think that that is breaking down a little bit of the awkwardness of meeting somebody you don't know for the first time in person before like texting them or DMing them or something.

21:12Amanda Schneider:So here's that interesting quick stat. And then Elizabeth, I want to come to you for your observations. when we did this Gen Z research, 85 % said relationships within their company were important, which was most true, actually a little bit higher, it was 89 % for Gen Z. But when we asked them about relationships within the industry, so these are industry reps and, you know, often who's hosting a lot of these events. And for those listeners that are not part of our industry, our industry is very social. There's lots of community development, probably more than any other industry that I'm aware of.

21:44Amanda Schneider:But only 61 % say relationships within the industry are very important. So from 85 within your company to 61 within the industry, which says there's kind of a breakdown in maybe some of the old norms that this industry used to value of those product reps as integral parts of the design process that aren't there maybe in the same way that they were before. And I think our industry is really hungry to figure out how we connect those dots of importance. And I'll say that, you know, one of the simplest ideas that has come up is put your photo in your email signature. Because what that does for me as a Gen Z designer that maybe has never met you in person is when I go into that event and I know that it's, you know, a Schneider at sandowdesign.com, I'm not going to be able to find that person.

22:31Amanda Schneider:But if I see Amanda's little mug in the bottom of that, that email signature, all of a sudden I can connect that digital person to a real human in real life. So I think there's some really interesting ways that we can start to bridge this. And it's something that I'm a little afraid of in the book is I'm trying to push people to really think digital first, but that doesn't mean digital only. It means connecting, using digital tools to connect back to the human. So Elizabeth, I'd love to come to you and hear you react to what Paritya was saying and kind of some of the shifts that you've seeing and maybe where those struggles still are?

23:03It is a real struggle right now or challenge to get younger designers to come to events. But I think one thing, especially within IIDA that we found and when my counterpart, Robin and I were the VPs of student development, the position that Preeti's in, we had a lot of those conversations. We spoke with Preeti and others and one of my colleagues that is a Gen Z as well, I was asking her, why are you coming to events? Why do you want to be there? And I think back to, you know, millennials really shifted the trend on how you're shopping and how retail works. We want to connect to a story. We wanted a reason behind the product as something that feels good.

23:51And what we found with Gen Z is they're very philanthropic. They're craving receiving value in their interactions that they're having and value in the sense of seeing tangibly how they can apply it or they want to give value. So if you're showing up to events, especially like the community center one, it's that feeling embedded in the community, feeling like they're giving something back. And then for the events, really seeking of kind of what we came out of that is these hands-on workshops. Like it's not that like you're saying digital only or previously like digital overload and exhaustion. It's not showing up and looking at a PowerPoint and clicking through and having someone talk at you.

24:41is ways that you can engage that really hands-on learning, that hands-on workshop, that you leave with something that you're really like, wow, that was really impactful for me.

24:54Amanda Schneider:I love this. And I think it's especially important to really think about the connectivity between generations. So baby boomers are the largest generation. They are starting to retire. My generation, Gen X, is one of the smallest generations. We will not be able to fill that gap. So it means your generation, Elizabeth, millennials, and your generation, Pre-T, Gen Z are going to have to step up sooner in their careers. And I think there's a real risk to losing a lot of that tribal knowledge, for lack of a better word. So I think it's not just these generational conversations risk sounding like it's so important to understand what Gen Z wants and boomers be gone.