The System Wasn’t Built for Everyone. Now What?

0:00I think every single one of us, we've been the first or we've been the only in a room. And to see others who look like us, there was just this immediate, visceral, emotional connection. Welcome to Design Nerds Anonymous, the podcast that sparks curiosity at the intersection of business and design. I'm your host, Amanda Schneider. Have you ever walked into a room and immediately noticed that no one else looked like you? Now, not just once, not as an anomaly, but often enough that you learn how to read the room before you even speak. Maybe how to make yourself feel a little bit taller or how to remind yourself, I belong here.

0:48If you know that feeling, parts of today's conversation may feel deeply familiar. And if you don't, that may be exactly why you want to listen to this episode in its entirety. Because one of the ideas we've been exploring all season is that two people can work inside the exact same organization, under the exact same policies, in the exact same physical space, and experience that workplace very differently. Now, the podcast that you're about to hear was recorded live in the Momentum Wall Coverings and Textiles showroom in Chicago, Illinois. It's part of our Work for What's Next book launch roadshow, where we're taking ideas from the book on the road, unpacking them through new perspectives, and building on them in real time.

1:34This isn't a conversation about designing a workplace for one particular group. It's about what becomes possible when we force ourselves to stop assuming our experience is the experience. because the future of work won't get better simply by giving everyone the same thing. It gets better when we get curious enough to understand how the systems we've built actually feel to the diversity of the modern workforce moving through them today. So let's get into it. Now, the topic we chose to dive into today, we titled it, The System Wasn't Built for Everyone, Now What? As I travel around, my TED Talk is titled, Work is Broken.

2:15And when I say those words, a lot of people say, well, I wouldn't say broken. But we all know we all experience work a little bit differently. And I think that that statement is probably debatable because we have different life experiences, different perspectives. So this idea that work is broken is the opening line of my TED Talk and a core idea in work for what's next. But I want our panelists to introduce themselves and start by summarizing in one word. What do you see is the biggest gap between the way we work today and the way we need to work next? So, Lisa, I'm going to start with you. Introduce yourself, your role, and maybe your one word.

2:53My name is Lisa Chung. I'm a design director from Gensler Chicago office, specifically in passion with hospitality, but also doing anything that is a built environment for people. And my one word for this discussion is intentionality. I think the way we work, we have to be more intentional. And just with global reach that we have, working with the other offices, another country, different time zone and culture. I think it's not about just meeting and gathering, but being intentional and what we are here to do together. Even tonight, I think we're very intentional on the topic that we're talking about.

3:30And also being able to take something away from our discussions and gatherings and making sure that we feel safe to do it as well. Absolutely. Well said. Libby. I am Libby Gillen. I'm here at Momentum. I'm vice president of A &D Engagement. Number one, I'm so happy to be part of this conversation. It's a passion that I have. My word is communication because I feel like right now whether we're communicating in the right way or the different ways of communication that we talk about is so important. So we have to meet each other at these different levels to make sure that we do hear each other, we do respect each other, and we can listen and take what we need and then move on or we can really listen and understand.

4:14Cheryl. Hi, I'm Cheryl Durst. I'm the CEO of IIDA, the International Interior Design Association. And I think my word is connectivity, but it's connected to a concern that I have around work, which is disconnectedness. And I think increasingly a lot of us feel disconnected from the work that we're doing or disconnected from the organizations or the brand, brands for which we're doing the work or disconnected from the people that we're working with. So as we hear these words, we hear intentionality, communication, and I'm going to use that disconnectedness. It's a word now. It's a word now. And I think that that's a really important place to start, as we say, is work broken?

4:58Because we have to make sure that these gaps don't get further apart. One of the things that the book explores is really different generational perspectives. And we look at generations not as stereotypes to say, this is what millennials want, this is what Gen Z wants. I think a lot of times when you name those perspectives as this is what one generation or one group of people wants, it makes someone else feel like they have to give something up so that you can get it. The way we try to look at it instead is kind of a spectrum of perspectives, a lot of the gray area in the middle. And so we actually play these games of Would You Rather in a lot of different formats.

5:34You'll read about them in the books. And one of them that we played at Neocon, we partnered with Momentum Wall Covering for a big custom wall covering that had different generations. Answer a few of these. One of them was, would you rather change jobs every year or stay in the same job until you retire? Gen Z was the only generation that wanted to change jobs every year. One was, would you rather work in the office five days a week or work fully remotely? Gen Z was the only generation more likely to choose in office? And finally, the third one was, would you rather go back 10 years or jump ahead 10 years?

6:08Again, Gen Z was the least optimistic generation about the future and the only one to say, I would rather go back. Do those surprise any of you? Yeah. I think a lot of people are surprised by these different generations. And for a lot of us, probably because there are perspectives we don't necessarily hold. So when you walked in, we played this would you rather game. And I think this connectedness or disconnectedness idea is going to be a running theme. The question that we asked was, would you rather work with people you genuinely connect with, even if you're less productive? Or would you rather work with the highest performing team, even if you don't feel personally connected?

6:41I'm going to invite you all to kind of look back. Can you see the board back there? What do you notice? Most people want to feel connected to their team. And I think that's a common theme. As you guys look at that, what do you see in this as it relates to our themes that we started with. I know I rather have more connectivity with a group, even if I think we could still be productive. I know there's that caveat, but it might take longer to get there, but I think it's so important. The relationships that we have with the people that we work with, like I think about my mom's generation and she never talked about a work wife or a work husband, right?

7:18Or she never talked about her work friends. Her generation, work was work, home was home, and my mom would always say, it's not your job's job to make you happy. And I think for many of us, we seek happiness either deliberately or not. We do seek happiness at work. Now, I'm not talking about fulfillment, but, you know, social life happens at work, or the original social network was work. I met my husband at work, for better or for worse. And, you know, I think there are generationally different expectations about what work brings us. And so we know that there's an entire generation out there who said the job of work is to compensate you on the 15th and the 30th of every month for what you contribute.

8:08But I think a lot of people have higher expectations of what work brings to you today. And I think that has to be some of the intentionality that you spoke of. Absolutely. And just kind of going back to that story of it is that I would rather invest trust and time with people that I genuinely enjoy because that's going to be our foundation where the trust will let us be more agile, will contribute to more riskness, but we'll do it together. Whereas efficient team will be there, but because you're efficient, the human connectivity won't be there. And at the end, when there are hard times that comes, people are definitely going to not be able to connect to each other.

8:46And it just fails. So though everyone that I work with are one of the smartest people in the room, but I chose my team not because they're smart, because we trust each other. That when things are difficult, that we're able to challenge each other, but also trust each other to make sure that they got my back. One of the ideas I challenge in the book as well is that we are working from analog era norms in a digital speed world. And if you look at kind of the way some of the norms that we still operate on and when they were built, they were built for a very different era. You know, anybody know why we work nine to five?

9:19I mean, if you think of it, it's grounded in sometimes they're called banker's hours, but also assembly lines. And Ford was, you know, one that really we had to be there because you were all putting things on the assembly line at the same time. Doesn't necessarily apply to knowledge work. Anybody know why kids have summers off? Because of farming, agriculture, right? How many of your kids farm today? No one? We are in Illinois. I mean, maybe. Depends on the crop. Depends on the crop. Yeah, exactly. There's new things that are legal these days. So lots of farming. Lots of farming going on. Yeah, yeah.

9:50But I think that we could extrapolate that to say, if you looked at the diversity of the workforce, the diversity of perspectives in the day that some of those eras were made, they're not necessarily reflective of the workforce today. So we all bring different backgrounds, identities, expectations, and lived experiences into the same system. So the next question I want to go to is, what do you think organizations miss when they assume everyone experiences work in the same way? And I guess part of that is, what do these conversations reveal about today's workplace that many leaders may never see if they haven't lived those experiences themselves?

10:27I think some leadership sometimes sees the workforce the way they experience it, which is definitely different than leadership versus the younger generation. So I think from Gensler, I'm very lucky to work with leadership who are curious. Instead of saying this is how it's meant to be, they do ask, like, is it working? How is it going? And really helping with the research that we do. But I think curiosity helps. And knowing that there's different ways of thinking beyond how they experience it versus junior and medium designers. I think that curiosity helps rather than thinking that it's the way it should be and being comfortable with how we've been working traditionally.

11:06And it's kind of where you're meeting your team and your colleagues and your coworkers. Are you meeting them halfway? One of the expressions, and this might be controversial that I really dislike, is bring your whole self to work. You don't want my whole self. and there are other people bring what you're comfortable bringing to work to be your best work self but allowing for what people bring to work and whether that's baggage or whatever but allowing people the depth and breadth of space that they need to bring their best selves to work i would rather have your best self than your whole self yeah and and to go along with that i'm gonna go back to communication, but I feel like we communicate differently.

11:55And if we don't want to bring our whole self, respect that. If you don't want to talk about what you did that weekend, but you're still contributing into the work that's happening, that's great. But if you do want to contribute what you did that weekend, respectfully don't share everything, maybe. Again, that's the whole self, but I think there's important things to get out of what learning about each other's backgrounds we're learning what you did that weekend learning what you know even like different cultures or whatever I think that's important and share when you're comfortable and it doesn't have to be all at once it doesn't have to be too much I'm going to say I feel very blessed because there's some people in this room who I worked with a long time ago and guess what back in the day I shared a lot which included dancing at Berlin at one in the morning but we worked our tails off to get it done together.

12:49We force people, I think, in a lot of ways to be team players. And then that's when it becomes your cosplaying work. And you don't want to cosplay work, right? And whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or an omnivert or whatever vert you are, we shouldn't force people to be part of a squad or a team if that is not comfortable for them. There's this expectation of go team. and not everybody's a go team person. I think Gen Z calls that cringe, right? Did I get that right, Maddie? I'm asking the intern over there. But I think it's interesting because we were all raised with the golden rule, right?

13:27Treat others the way you want to be treated. And so I think if you look at a difference between perspective and going back to generations with, you know, the way that baby boomers brought their full selves to work or did not versus, you know, Gen Z who wants to talk about salaries on social media, you know, It's a pretty different perspective. And so the natural tendency is to treat others with the best intentions the way that you would want to be treated because that's kindness, right? And I think that that's what's hard about where we are is trying to help treat others with perspectives that we don't necessarily hold.

14:00So I want to come back to, Cheryl, I know you just met with the HBCUs. And you might have had some insights about how to help leaders if they haven't had these lived experiences themselves. So I had a great conversation with career counselors from four HBCUs, and they were asking me about what should we tell, particularly our young Black graduates who have been at a predominantly Black institution, about possibly entering a workforce that doesn't look like them, right? There's safety and comfort in being at an HBCU that you won't necessarily have that safety and comfort being out in the world of work.

14:40And it really caused me to think about emotional safety, knowing what a safe space is like, knowing what it feels like to walk into a room and no one looks like you. I can only speak for myself, but as a black woman, I learned from a very young age, instructed by my parents, you assess the climate and the temperature of a room when you walk in. And there are some rooms that you walk in from a business standpoint where you know that there are people who don't want you in that room. So how do you prepare for that? Because you need to be in those rooms. And so what do you shore yourself up with? What does ambition look like?

15:23What does moving ahead look like? What does getting your job done look like when you know that there are people who don't want you in that room? And that was as true in 1960-whatever as it is tomorrow, unfortunately. And so I talked to these career counselors about talking to their students about curiosity and asking questions, but also about courage and about knowing your worth and knowing your value and understanding the incredible skill set of reading the room. Regardless of if you're black, white, or otherwise, I think reading the room is one of those soft skills as women, as people of color at a certain age, developing that skill set of knowing when you walk into a room, just being able to assess that room and how you will be received, how your message will be received and how your work will be received.

16:15Which AI cannot do for us in good news. You can ask Claude to try, but I'm pretty sure Claude can't do that. And it's not fear-based, It's awareness. Any other thoughts for people learning that skill of reading the room, especially in this digital era where reading the room doesn't mean the same thing? Because sometimes it's a digital room and that digital body language is totally different. This made me think of imposter syndrome because a lot of young people. What's that? Nobody is. Why am I here? But it is absolutely, I'm not saying you have imposter syndrome, but if you're in the room, read the room and be comfortable in it because you do belong there.

17:01And I know there's some students here and it makes me so happy because I want them to understand, you know what, you came in here, you may not have known anybody, but you're still here. and you're going to get comfortable once you start reading the room, once you start talking to people, meeting more people. Another, like ask questions. You do not need to be the smartest one in the room, especially if you're a student. But even for myself, I ask maybe too many questions because I want to know the connectivity that we may have. I want to know where can I meet you that you're comfortable. I was just going to add that, I mean, as a woman, as a foreign woman as a foreign woman a mother i think it took a lot to become where i am but sometimes you have to kind of fake it to make it like posture syndrome i was always like okay there's going to be a room full of very caucasian heavy male oriented meeting i'm gonna put on my you know six inch high heel make myself six feet tall and even sit taller and be like yes i belong here.

18:07I deserve to be here. And you shall listen to me because I'm your design advocate. And I think that does help. And even now earlier, I was like, I can't believe I'm sitting next to Cheryl and Libby. And everyone's like, you deserve to be there. I'm like, ah, yes, I do deserve to be here. And I have a lot to share with you.

18:37and the best ideas are shaped by many perspectives. We all know the workplace is changing and Momentum is evolving alongside it. No two people experience work or the spaces that support it in the same way. By designing for different ways of working and evolving needs, Momentum is helping create environments that are more thoughtful, more welcoming, and better equipped to support those who use them. They've invested in expanding their portfolio with integrated solutions like Auteks Acoustics and B &N Industries, while continuing to collaborate with designers, artists, and innovators who challenge us all to think differently.

19:18Because the best design reflects the communities it serves. Like many of our Design Nerds Anonymous fans, Momentum believes that the future of design belongs to organizations that listen, learn, and build with people at the center. You can learn more at MomentumCo.com. dot com.

19:42Libby, I want to come to you next because the foundation of this is you graciously invited me to join an event with the Women of Color and Design that I know Cheryl helped host. It was just a lovely event. I was so thankful to be included. And I feel like if I understand that that was really designed to share experiences that weren't necessarily being reflected in broader conversations. Tell me a little bit more about what that group is about, why it formed, and what you hope to help advocate for by forming that group and being together. During COVID, I was in Austin, Texas. So it was already really strange to be there because some of Texas didn't believe that COVID was, you know, a real thing.

20:22But after George Floyd's murder, I was beside myself because I didn't have any advocacy there of people who understood. I was in a predominantly white area. My husband is white. I was just like, I don't know what I'm feeling right now, but I'm not feeling good. I need some help. Cheryl is one of the people I called. I called like three people from Chicago, like my friends and said, like, how are you feeling? And we were all like crying. Like it was not a good feeling. And so whether you were in Chicago, whether you were in Texas, Massachusetts, whatever, we did not feel comfortable having conversations with many who this has been going on for years.

21:04We were aware of it, but not everyone was aware that these, you know, murders were happening. So long story short, Cheryl said, you call some friends, called another, you call some friends. And it wasn't just, it was women of color because at the same time during this pandemic, a lot of our Asian friends and counterparts were all of a sudden getting treated like shit because they didn't know, you know, they were blaming it on, you know, Asian. It's an Asian disease, you know, whatever. And I'm, and it was just ridiculous. So we got on the phone, it started maybe 20 people. The next week we got on another call because it felt so good.

21:45it felt like a fellowship, got on another call, and then there was 45 people. I mean, it grew organically. But I think on that first call where we saw 20 black and brown faces, I think we all looked at the screen because, A, we were all learning Zoom too. We looked at that screen, and we all cried. And then as the numbers grew, this realization that we are out there, there is a community of women in design, women of color in design, and we had never really connected. And yes, we have NOMA, you know, Organization of Black Designers, but we had never really identified one another. And, you know, sadly, it took a crisis to bring us together.

22:31But also there was just that wonderful fulfillment because I think every single one of us, again, I'll use that analogy, we've been the first or we've been the only in a room. and to see others who looked like us, there was just this immediate, visceral, emotional connection. And we spanned from Hawaii to Boston. Like it wasn't just like, oh, this Midwest region. It was across the country. And it felt so good to have that advocacy and know like, oh, I thought it was me or I thought I was alone in Texas. And actually I wasn't alone in Texas because others did, my friends did join from that Texas area, but it was something that was so magical.

23:16We even say black girl magic. And we didn't know what it was. And we did it for a long time, but then real life happened. We went back to work and both, I love Cheryl's like, this is not an LLC. Yes, we are not. It's not a club. There are no dues. We are not. but as I travel I do try to gather women of color so I was just in um New York City and we had a small gathering and I looked at the women in the room I go and we had some students there I go please carry it forward like make it a little more often than once or twice a year make it a little more literal so you have that platform and it is that powerful connection and you all may have seen things like this happen.

24:01If you've ever come to IIDA's Sunday night event at Neocon Revel, we will gather all of the black and brown women and we take a photo together. I know ASID does the same thing at their gather event. Whenever we're together and it's that power of realizing and regardless of the context of whether it's race or gender, many of you know what it's like or you don't know what it's like to walk into a room and be the only one. And then you realize how lonely you've been. And so to see a group of women who you immediately identify with, you realize, oh, I'm not alone. And that was really powerful. And we pulled women of color off the dance floor being like, we're taking our picture now.

24:48They're like, oh, I'm not a part of it. I'm like, yes, you are. That's amazing. And Cheryl, I know that you've done a lot of advocacy through your role at IIDA, because this industry, despite designing spaces for the broader world that are supposed to promote belonging and collaboration and all of these things that we say that we want. Our industry has struggled to not have only-onlys. So talk about that initiative a little bit. And this podcast is talking not just to our industry, but really about what design can do for the broader world. What do we all need to hear? The numbers are still dismal, but getting better, as ironic as that sounds.

25:24But it's still less than 5 % of particularly interior design are people of color. I'm a firm believer, my mantra has been, you can't design for the world if you're not of the world. And that doesn't mean that every single designer needs to be black or brown. There needs to be awareness of the multiplicity of perspectives that people bring to place. And that's the people creating the place for the people who are inhabiting the place. And so the more that we can become culturally literate and culturally competent, the better. And it doesn't mean have one black friend, please, please don't tell me about your one black friend, but have a lens through which you see the world that isn't the lens, the neighborhood, the school that you went to.

26:12It's just a much wider lens to see how people experience place because I will experience place and comfort and belonging very differently than you will. And whether that's because of my age or because of my size or because of my color, take all of those things into consideration. And Lisa, I want to come to you next because you work for the largest interior design giant of design firm. And I'm assuming as you think about collaboration, as you think about the future of work, all of these perspectives are super important. What do we need to think about differently as we think about designing offices or any space, I guess, that helps people feel welcome?

26:50And how do you guys make sure to integrate those perspectives when you think about the future of collaboration at Gensler? I think we started to experience future of collaboration when pandemic hit, actually. I vividly remember the day we were asked to pack our bags and actually left my snack drawer thinking that we'll be back in a couple of weeks. And they definitely went bad. But we're really preparing as a design firm, influential in a way we want to make sure that we're creating spaces that's not just beautiful. I mean, that's given, right? But it's really the meaning of how we could make sure that the human behavior can be safe for everyone.