Stephen Gates on Speaking the Language of Business

22:30Stephen Gates:Like it's because you are valuing internal politics over your consumer experience. Like that's a huge one. But there's a ton of those sort of things where it's just before we even say one word, if I see that, I can tell that you're siloed, that, you know, design is undervalued, all the things. There's probably a whack of sort of in-house design leaders listening. Like I know there are a few who listen regularly. And so I'm super curious what some of those, like their own flags, like what are some things that as design leaders, mistakes they might make that they should sort of keep an eye on? This podcast is made possible with the support of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers.

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24:21Stephen Gates:Well, I think, you know, look, I think the current state of in-house design leadership, I will best describe as it is often reduced to executive hysteria management. That in many cases, some CEO says, we need a t-shirt and everybody starts running around and buying t-shirt company. It's like minions or something, right? Where they're like, oh, T-shirt, T-shirt, T-shirt, T-shirt. And I think for a lot of it in our role is to go, wait, like why? Like what does this mean? Even if they hand you a solution, how do you back it up to a problem? And how do you remain the conscientious objector? And I think the hard part is to really do it well.

25:00Stephen Gates:It is an exhaustive, soul-sucking siege on your sanity because you almost have to show up every single day being willing to go to the edge of being fired to change the culture. And I think, again, this is something, I was like, why does that happen? And really started to study that. And one of the things I found was that like around 75 or 80 % of transformation work fails whenever they try to evolve the culture. And most of the time what happens, and I think this is my biggest advice for those design leaders, is start to look at how can you start to target thinking, not behavior. Because the reason why 80 % of the 75, 80 % of work fails is usually two reasons.

25:40Stephen Gates:One, the employees are not empowered to go on the journey and to actually make any tangible change. And the other part of it usually is that, again, what they are addressing is behavior, not thinking. Meaning we're going to use some different words. We're going to launch a new process. We're going to come up with some new company values. And it's like bonus points of the first letter of every value makes an acronym or your company logo or something, right? But I think it's how do you really address the underlying thinking and start to shift that? And that in a lot of cases doing that, I think you have to approach it differently.

26:18Stephen Gates:And I think this is where I've developed this weird Liam Neeson-esque unique set of skills because I think a lot of what it is, it's not taking it head on. it's not making it into like an ego war like when I was at Citibank or something I realized that a huge part of the culture we had two big problems one was just what I would describe as cultural apathy which was that people were used to being mediocre for so long there that in every company that I've ever worked with I found has some phrase that will encapsulate that moment in that mediocrity like you're sitting in a meeting and we could do this thing or we could be more innovative and it's like, eh, I don't know.

26:55And that's just how we've always done it.

26:58Stephen Gates:Exactly. It's either that's how it's always been. Welcome to insert your brand name here. That, you know, again, there's some line that whenever you say it, it's sort of, it endorses the mediocrity that follows. So I, I created what was like an apathy swear jar, which is that it like there and at other teams, if you said that phrase in my presence showed me 20 bucks because it was a dollar nobody cares and I know I'm dealing with creatives and other people that may not be great at budgeting their money and I want people to still have dinner so and like I bought beers for the team it was like I was making my car payment with it but a lot of what it was was just the point was to realize that it that phrase probably got said in every single meeting we were in and that there was this unspoken endorsement of apathy that it was kind of like mail it in.

27:44Stephen Gates:And if you look at agencies, you look at again, like for in-house, why is outside thinking always valued as being better? Right? Why do we need consultants and agencies? That's why that moment of like, of that. And the other thing that I realized was that the culture would not reward risk. It would not even reward honesty, that we would do a project and you take a bunch of data and you'd pull out the data that told the best story and you'd spin it into something that was great and the stock didn't move and you didn't get the results you needed and you didn't actually hit any of your KPIs, but we all went, yay.

28:16Stephen Gates:And what I realized is it's because nobody's telling the truth, right? Like we're not working towards emotional trust. So I started doing this thing called the belly flop of the week, which was every time we had a big team meeting every week, I'd give a bottle of champagne and a trophy to the person that would stand up and admit that they screwed up the biggest. Because I had to cultivate an environment where risk, creativity, sharing and learning, those were what were rewarded. So I think that's a lot of what it is, is that I wasn't attacking the behavior. It's like, how do I attack the underlying thinking?

28:49Stephen Gates:And I've got playbooks of that sort of stuff. But I think that's where it's just you almost have to, like I said, it's like an act of rebellion just to be that one who's going to say, no, this is what we stand for, because it's just there's so much of the status quo and just, I did it because so-and-so said so. Was it dumb? Well, but they told me to. It occurs to me that there's also like a lot of fun that you're injecting in a lot of these scenarios. And I think there's, there's like huge, huge value in fun and joy and creative work, right? Like if we're just sitting there and grinding it out, like that's the bottom of the creative process.

29:24Like that's the like, this sucks, I suck part. And if you can't sort of bounce people out of that regularly.

29:30Stephen Gates:Well, but I think, but that's the problem, right? Is I think too many of us have been taught that leadership is like being serious. And it's like the scene from a movie where I stand up and I give the big passionate speech and then everything's different. And that never is how it is. And I think in a lot of cases, that's the problem is if I go in and say, oh, there's a process or there's leadership or here's an org chart, everybody gets all bristly. But if it's like, oh, we're giving away booze and a trophy for some funny stories every week, I want to do that. Like there's a funny apathy swear jar that's going to make us money every time somebody screws up and I can sort of make fun of, oh, I want to do that.

30:03So again, I think it's just, again, this is why I'll often say like, when it comes to

30:08Stephen Gates:leadership or my work, I could care less about who's right. I care about being effective. And that, you know, normally in house, it is, I need a process. I need an org chart. I need a pitch deck. I need, like, I need, I need. How is that going to change anything? Right? Like people, people follow process because somebody tells them to. And I think, again, for me, I'm much more interested in behavior, right? Like how do I build behaviors, not processes? How do I get adoption, not documentation? And again, I think that that's the thing. And we all seem to forget, like this is supposed to be fun, right?

30:45Stephen Gates:Like as creatives, we're the kids that survived, right? Like at some point there was like, you had your guidance counselor, somebody who was like, oh, that's not a serious profession. And we went, eh. And everybody else was like, oh, you're right. it's supposed to be fun right like why not be that plus i think and that's there there's a friend of mine at ideo who i think had the greatest description of this that i'd ever heard and he worked with tons of companies and he would always equate it back to the the game of of the old video game of super mario brothers because in super mario brothers you would go around at some point you could eat a mushroom and once you ate a mushroom then you could spit fireballs if you think about that and you think about it through the lens of organizational change, if you went around your organization and say, do you want to eat a mushroom?

31:29Stephen Gates:Everybody's like, hell no, I don't want to eat a mushroom. Like, no, no, no, it'd be cool. You could eat a mushroom. Like, I'm not eating a mushroom. Like, what are you talking about? That's crazy. Like, I'm not eating a mushroom. As opposed to if you walk around and go, you want to spit fireballs? People are like, hell yeah, I need to eat. I want to like spit fireballs. Like, eat this mushroom. They'll eat it right away. So I think if you talk in outcomes, if you make it fun, if you talk about the value of things, not the process of things and make it about like, what's the fireball? Then, then people naturally want to come along on that journey with you.

31:59It's such a good analogy for risk too, right? Like so much, especially here in Canada, where I think like often clients and brands are a little more risk averse than other places in the world.

32:11Stephen Gates:You all are very polite. Are more risk averse. And so that idea of like, let's eat the mushroom and see what happens. No, that's what I I mean, like how you guys like raise such aggressive hockey players and such passive, like I'll never understand. But that's the thing is I think, but it's also about painting that outcome. And I think that's what screws up most people is that whenever you're like, because the number one thing that I hear whenever I have those conversations with people is always the same statement starts the conversation. I don't know where to start. And I think that's a lot of what it is, is that at that moment, what you need is a plan, not the answer.

32:47Stephen Gates:right the plan is to spit fireballs how we're going to get there what does a mushroom look like we'll figure that out along the way because you know what surprise that's called a design challenge and with most of our careers and with most of our work we have this insane skill set that we will deploy whenever it comes to our work but whenever it comes to cultural engineering social dynamics like these sort of changes those skills seem to go out the window if you think about it like a design problem, I go into it saying, oh, I need to experiment with this. I want to try that. Does this work? Does that not?

33:19Stephen Gates:Right? Like I want to go in and learn. But whenever it comes to those sorts of things, we feel like we have to have these definite outcomes. You just stop, like embrace what you're good at. Cause then, you know, because that's the horrible irony of this profession is the longer you do it, usually the further it pulls you away from what you love. Absolutely. Right. Like I went to art school to not do budgets and to do headcount planning and to do big fives and career ladders and all that sort of stuff. Right. But there I am. So again, I think, you know, just you have to fight to keep that, but it's just, it's so worth it.

33:54Okay. So you spend all this time in house, which sort of does influence your thinking deeply, deeply. You're building teams, you're shaping culture. And eventually you, you start crazy. You start your own agency. Talk to us about how that came to be, how that differs from in-house, what that experience has been like.

34:11Stephen Gates:Yeah. So I started my career, like we talked about, right? Like my dad's agency, I worked at McKenna, New York, and in Dallas and other places like that. And so again, I think I've always tried to blend what I'll call an in-house mindset with an agency soul. And I wish there was some great origin story here. I wish I could say that this was my plan all along. That's not the case. I'd gotten laid off for the third time in my career, found myself in this very interesting place where I'm like, oh, I'm going to go out and reclaim my power. I found out on Thursday, I got laid off on a Friday. Monday, I went on LinkedIn and said, that's it.

34:48Stephen Gates:I'm going to go find something fully with the intention of this was going to document my show them success is the best revenge, return to power or whatever. and I think for me I was really out of touch with just how unhappy I had become how much and it's again somebody's had a show talking about this stuff for nine years it hit me when in a number of cases I was asked to present a case study and they would say look like show work in the last five years that you're really proud of and I didn't have any and all of a sudden it's like well can I go back a bit further and it's like wait why do I have this five to six year block of no work that I'm really proud of nothing that I've really produced like what what is going on and it just it led to a lot of deeper decisions and self-reflection and mental health journeys and other things like that but what I realized was I'd compromised too much I'd given away too much for a paycheck for stability for these sort of things and even to the point where I was so Programmed to want those things that I actually fell backwards Into starting my own agency because I was like, oh look i'm just going to do some freelancing on my way to finding another job And put it out there it had gotten a couple clients and it was funny Two of them came to me and they're like look, you know dumbass, if you would say that you'll just, this is what you're going to do, we'll put you on retainer and like, we can just pay you.

36:21Stephen Gates:And it was like, wait a minute. Because I think I'd gotten to the place where taking that level of risk, prioritizing my happiness, my creativity, those sorts of things, all I could see was the downside. I could see what I could lose. I'm not on this journey by myself anymore. I've got a mortgage, I've got a wife, I've got a dog, I've got, I'm not doing this alone. And fell backwards into it, into what's been for me, the greatest revitalization, like in my career of coming back and being so happy and embracing the mess and embracing my creativity. And like my career is never fit. Nobody would ever look at my career path and tell you it was a good idea.

36:59Mine either.

37:00Stephen Gates:But that nobody's is right. But yet we all feel like there should be a script. And so I did. I started crazy where I sat down and said, look, you know, what? Knowing what I know, what are the conditions that I know create great work? And for me, it's focus, trust, and respect. And so I'm like, great, how do I build an agency model that values those things? So my team and I only work with like three to four clients at a time because I had become more of like a politician and an interventionist and therapist than I had a creative and somebody in my in-house roles. It's like, I'm going to go back to that, that I want to value partnership and trust.

37:43Stephen Gates:So for us, it's like a three month minimum engagement. You buy our time, not necessarily, I don't really do project work that again, it was a lot of that prioritization. I embrace the mess. Like right now I'm designing a, you know, LLMAI, I'm designing a brand, a website, an app, a restaurant, everything in between. Why do I need to fit into that? I burned all the pitch decks and just said, again, look, I love working without a net. So instead of talking about somebody else's past, why don't we talk about your future and prove the skills are real? And I think it also has been an incredible lab in what I've talked about for so long of the importance of embracing who you are, of having a brand, not as a logo, but to just be clear about what do you want out of your career?

38:31because in three and a half years, still going, 100 % of my work comes on referral.

38:38Stephen Gates:And I think that because people know who I am, they know how I show up, they know the work, they know what that's going to be. And so, I mean, it was interesting that I went kicking and screaming into returning to doing work that I love, that I'm proud of. Like, it was really funny. I went from, you know, not having any work to show for five or six years to I was just in the process of updating my website. It's like, OK, I probably need to cut this down to like 20 things that I've done that I like. And it's just I had become so acclimatized to the corporate culture of what I wanted was what somebody else told me.

39:18Stephen Gates:What was next on a career ladder? It's what was in my big five. It was that even as somebody that talks about it, you want to talk about atomic imposter syndrome, where it's kind of like, oh, I coach everybody else about this. Man, did I go sideways on this in my career? But and I think that was an interesting part was documenting that on LinkedIn and sharing that whole journey of like, wow, I really got this wrong. And it is that I'm just I'm happier that I've been in 10 or 15 years because I realized that for me, there's one moment that tells the tale. and the moment is the whenever I first wake up in the morning because I realized that for the last five or six years in that moment I would wake up and try to figure out how would I how was I going to survive the day what meetings did I need to be in what ones could I be off camera did I really need to do this what bs was I going to have to deal with right like how's I just going to get to the end to the next day to the weekend to whatever it was now that moment's completely different because it's like oh that's that's right that's cool I get to work on this today I get to keep doing that.

40:21Stephen Gates:I get to like, there's that moment of like, you know, yeah, I know I want to go get after that. And it's even funny where I had a conversation with a friend the other day who's like, why aren't you still working like 50, 60 hours a week? And I said, absolutely. But it is amazing how it hits different when you're doing something you love, when it's building something that you want, when you're building your dream and not somebody else's. it, it hits totally different. So that's what I said. I wish there was like, Oh, this was the plan all along. It was like, no, I went kicking and screaming into being the happiest I'd been in a long time.

40:54I, I, I hear all of that because I think so much of my last five years mirrors, mirrors that in some way, like that whole sort of kicking and screaming, you know, burnout reflect on, on where you are. Um, and so much of it is the like practice of realizing someone else's vision versus realizing your own.

41:11Stephen Gates:And I think there's just, there are so many people that are in that spot that are sort of, you know, are doing that, like, look, this isn't what I thought it would be, or I'm not happy in what that is. I'm just not sure what to do. Well, and what do you say to those people? Like you do so much sort of coaching of creative people through fear, imposter syndrome, and burnout. So like, what do you say to those folks? Usually there's just a couple of things. I think one is to take the time to actually figure out what do you want? Not what do you think the industry wants? Not what do I think it's why whenever you look at so many portfolios, whenever you look at so many, they're so generic, because to me, it just screams like, who do you want me to be?

41:48Stephen Gates:Not this is who I am. That's why so many people are struggling in this job market, right? Nobody wants to hire generic talent. And I think one is to really do that, to sit down, talk to your friends, your peers, your significant other, you're like, whatever it is and say, look, you know, what am I good at? What am I not? How do you actually define what you want. And then I think the second big piece of it for me is get some accountability. Because for me, what I realized in that five to six year span was that I knew I was unhappy, right? I knew I needed to do something different. I think most creatives, or at least maybe it's just me, I have the infinite ability to disappoint myself and rationalize it in a way I can still sleep at night.

42:26Well, because we do that over and over and over again through the creative process.

42:30Stephen Gates:Oh, that's what I mean, right? It was too sunny. It was too cloudy. It was too hot. It wasn't hot enough. It rained too much. It didn't rain enough, right? Like there's some reason why I'm not going to do the thing that I need to do. And I can rationalize that until forever. Yes, I should work on my book. Yes, I should look for a job. Yes, I should. I should do these things. But, and this is why for me, like I so embrace this concept of like comfort is the enemy of greatness. But I think a lot of what it was is if I got an accountability buddy of somebody who said, no, look, I'm going to have this done in two weeks, while I can disappoint myself easily, again, I will do anything to be able to make sure and you need to get somebody like, find that friend that will say the thing that everybody else is thinking.

43:11Stephen Gates:And I think when you do that, you start to treat it like a job and you start to be able to get back into that motion and start to rediscover your confidence and rediscover a lot of those sort of things. And what do you want in your power in this equation? Then it just, again, it starts to pick up steam and just go from there. But I think that's a lot of what it is, is that like, take the time and really, what do you want? And I think that those are the two questions most of the time when people come to me that I'll ask them is one, can you tell me how you have an idea? There's not a right answer to that.

43:43Stephen Gates:But what I'm looking for is have you actually ever spent the time to value and understand your own creativity? And two, can you tell me what you need to be happy? I've had people who have called me, texted me emailed me like two three days later and said steve i have not been able to sleep i've been up for three days because i do not understand the answer to those questions and i do not know why and i am so pissed off about it great harness that but i think that's a lot of where it is to start because that's the thing is people go like oh what did you do no we're not doing that right that that's like me giving you yesterday's winning lottery numbers well it's back to that whole Well, that's back to that whole spitting fireballs and not eating the mushroom thing.

44:25Yeah. Right.

44:26Stephen Gates:But that's the thing, right? It's like, look, somebody who you aren't did a thing that you didn't do with a skill set that you don't have for a company that you aren't a part of. Like, this is why I don't like to talk about my work because I think there's limited value there. But it is, I'm like, look, get pissed off, right? Like, understand that you deserve better to be able to do those sort of things. Like, get some accountability. Don't, because I'm like, that's, success is a choice. That, that it is the simplest advice that I know to give people because it's not some big moment. Are you going to do the work?

45:01Stephen Gates:Are you going to do those sorts of things? Are you going to put in the time to figure it out, to prioritize yourself for your happiness, to do those sorts of things? Yes, I understand that there is uncertainty and risk and all those sorts of things, but that's why I was sort of described for me. I think I've really tried to master the difference between crazy and stupid, right? Like I am, I have, here's of the crazy ones tattooed on my right arm. Partially like not as an Apple fanboy thing, but just as a reminder of how I want to show up every day. Sometimes it's an affirmation. Some days it's a reminder.

45:31Stephen Gates:Like I've marked my body in multiple places with tattoos to remind myself of that. But like we don't we don't have a ton of time to do this, right? What we get is fun and it's a privilege and it should be fun. And that's why we want to be able to do that. And I think when you start having fun and you embrace that and the moment when I started showing up as who I am, not as who I thought people wanted me to be, is when my career took off. But it is so easy to say and so hard to do. So I think get that accountability, get that support system, right? Because believing in yourself is an act of will.

46:05Stephen Gates:It's easier to be generic because that's what most companies in the world want you to be. It's easier for them to digest. Well, but it also means you're not getting a big sort of devastating loss anywhere, right? like you're not being rejected for who you are, which is also a hard thing to do if you are not showing up as yourself. But I think that's a lot of what I think is, I think that's a toxic thing you have to recalibrate. Again, I think if I am showing up as who my boss wants me to be, who my company wants me to be, who the industry wants me to be, that's like a snake eating its own tail.

46:37Stephen Gates:I'm never going to be happy because I'm never going to, since I'm using outside validation metrics, not my own, that I'm going to be chasing for forever. Right? I think that's like that old thing of like, when you walk into a room, how do I shift from, gee, I hope they like me to, gee, I hope I like them. And understanding that what makes you different is your superpower. Right? What makes you different? The different perspective, the life you've led, the experiences you've had, the failures, the successes, those things give you a perspective that is unique from everybody else. And how do you lean in to embrace that to say, look, there is value there.

47:17Stephen Gates:There is value in what I can bring to a company, value to my happiness, financial value, like in all sorts of ways. But it is because I think that's the part is that it's embracing the truly personal side of creativity. Because instead of just what most people do, which is the status quo of I'm going to be who you want me to be. When I say this is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what it is, I take a position. And it was a hard journey for me because my mentor had always taught me, like in anything you design, build, design something somebody's going to hate, right? Meaning that it has a strong enough opinion or it's a strong enough brand or strong enough experience that people who love it, freaking love it.

47:59Stephen Gates:And those who don't, don't. And it was a long road for me to decide that like, I'm not for everybody. And that's kind of the point. Yeah, I think that that absolutely is the point. And I think it does take time to get to that place. I don't think you come out in your 20s as a human who recognizes that often. No, or your 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s. It takes time. But I also think that's a lot. But look, but I think that's also where I think there's a trap because I think a lot of people I talk to, they're like, how do I get rid of imposter syndrome? It's like, you don't. Because for me, there's so much of what makes creatives great in balance because like there's so many attributes of imposter syndrome of that insecurity of wanting to be better of keep learning of like moving forward of again like trying to be humble enough that you want to work with people but you know sort of egotistical enough that you understand your value right there's a balance there there's so many of those things will make you great but if they get out of whack they'll paralyze you and I think it's just it's understanding that that's what it's about it's not about eliminating those things like it's funny that's why in a lot of cases for me, I've, for the last four or five years, I've tried to destroy my own brand.

49:10Stephen Gates:Because I, whenever I went and whenever I started the studio, so many people said, oh, you can work wherever you want. You can do whatever you want. And it's like, you, you should come sit on some of the conversations I'm having because no, I can't. But what I realized is I've been perpetuating this myth that there's a point where you make it, that somehow you're immune from imposter syndrome, or you're, you can do whatever you want, or you found some, no, you don't. You just have a bigger track record so people think that somehow you're over it. And I'm just like, again, whenever I go to design thinkers and I stand on a stage, just because I'm three feet higher in the air than the people who are sitting down doesn't mean I have any more of the answers.

49:47Stephen Gates:But I think that's the thing we need to recognize is that we are all going through that and that this concept of like, oh, there's a point where I won't have to deal with this is not the case. Let's wrap this up with, okay, as like design teams are evolving, we've talked about a lot of this stuff, but remote work, AI, business pressure, corporate environments, all that stuff. As design teams are evolving, let's wrap this up with like the way you think right now, given how many conversations you get to sit in and sit in on and participate in. How do you think the sort of design leadership needs to adapt to that new stuff?

50:23Like what are the things that you're excited about in that space right now?

50:27Stephen Gates:Let's talk about the state of the industry and then I'll talk about what I'm excited about. Because look, I think that right now, because I think there's always an expansion and contraction in any industry. And then right now, I think we're in the midst of a design contraction, right? We came through the last five or 10 years of the design thinking boom and like heads of design and in-house design and the rise of a lot of those things. And now we're seeing it swing the other way. I think we're seeing it swing in a way that a lot of people maybe didn't expect because there's a natural contraction.

50:52Stephen Gates:But as we've seen AI and other things like that come in, I think that the reason why a lot of designers don't like AI mostly is because it's let us see just how little most companies don't care about design, right? They see it as an output, not an outcome. And that there's a lot of companies right now and a lot of CEOs getting fired, a lot of crap product getting launched because they don't understand what creativity is. They don't understand AI. They don't understand those sort of things. Um, for me, it's, I've continued to say, and I think, again, my work continues to boom and everything else.

51:30Stephen Gates:So I think that it's the right way of thinking. But for me, it's like, look, you know, the want for creativity, the want for strategy, for thinking, the ability to challenge, to speak truth to power, to be able to think in a different way. That's a timeless thing. Does the execution of that work change? Absolutely. Is it changing a lot now? Absolutely. Again, is there a devaluing of what that is and that there's a whole lot of generic work? Because again, just like we've seen with desktop publishing and digital and Photoshop and other things like that right now, we're very enamored with the execution and we've sort of lost the plot on the human truths.

52:07Stephen Gates:That will correct. But I think that that's the point is for me, like to continue to double down on creativity, strategy, storytelling, right? These are not things that are going to go away. Is the execution going to look different? Absolutely. I think I've been a very open advocate and strong user of AI for three years in our work. We use it with 100 % of our clients, but we are very open about it. We're very clear about what our value is and where does that come in and what is the difference? And again, I think that's my thing is that, look, the Canva crowd was never going to be my audience. They were never going to be my clients, and that's fine.

52:46Stephen Gates:That's an evolution of that. But I think that's what a lot of it is, is, you know, we're allowing as creatives, we're allowing the moment to dull our shine or to take our voice away too much. And I tell too many people that this is why stupid people are successful. Right. Because they just they don't care. They'll keep yelling and talking and doing whatever it is. And I think we tend to be very empathetic. We tend to be a lot like very thoughtful and a lot of those sort of things. So in moments like this, we tend to get quiet. If for no other reason, like look at NFTs and look at crypto, look at any recent technology, you can tell there weren't any creatives in the room, right?

53:21Stephen Gates:Like when it comes to crypto wallets, the dumbest analogy you can use for that. But you can tell it's like, oh, wallet, sure. But again, I think we need to be in these conversations. We need to understand like what our value is. We need to stop having our value be based in just the execution and have it be in the creativity and the thinking and what the perspective we can bring to the table. And those things are still wanted and valued as much as anything. But I think there is an absolute crisis of confidence and creativity right now where I think we're feeling very devalued just because a lot of people go to chat GPT and just take whatever it spits out and go good enough.

53:59Stephen Gates:I think it's very disheartening to be able to see it in black and white. um you know it's something i said 10 years ago i you know we did a big study i was at envision said 80 of the world's companies are in the middle to the bottom of like a design maturity scale they don't value design everybody went oh it's like we need to fix this so we're gonna end up in this moment no and and i think it's just but that but for me that's the opportunity you know to do something different to go out on your own to say there's a different way of doing it to be able to to do those sort of things that it doesn't diminish our power or our ability.

54:33Stephen Gates:I think the want is there more than ever, but it does require an evolution on our part. And, you know, whether that's in-house or whatever that is, where it's just, I mean, and that's been my thing is that anytime you are leading a team or a career or anything that is just based on the executional side of design, it's a commoditized career. Technology changes, right? Like, again, I remember back in the day, I had a whole bunch of friends that were really into Adobe Flash and they would write action script and they do all that. And one keynote from Steve Jobs and they were out of a job. That our power is not in our execution.

55:07Stephen Gates:Like, yes, it is important, but look like great design is a visual expression of great thinking. It's the thinking piece that's always going to have the value. So there's more insecurity there. There's more imposter syndrome there. It's a tougher thing to do than just, again, make it pretty. But I think that's where for me, I want to see us sort of rise. It's why design thinkers I'm talking about, you know, the whole confidence trap of a lot of this sort of stuff. Because again, I think, you know, it's a moment where I'm able to create work I never imagined that I could do. Is it different? Yes.

55:37Stephen Gates:But again, I think, you know, for me, it's just, it's rife with opportunity if we can see that there's an opportunity there. Yeah, that perspective shift is so valuable. Well, thanks, Stephen. This was such a treat to get to talk to you and our audience will get to learn a little bit about you before you're back on stage at Design Thinkers in October, which is the best. We'll see you in a couple of months. I can't wait. Thanks for having me. Design Thinkers is Canada's largest annual graphic design conference. Find out more by visiting designthinkers.com. Design Thinkers is produced by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers, also known as the RGD.

56:20The RGD is Canada's largest professional association for graphic designers. Our vision is for a graphic design profession that is broadly valued for its contribution to life, commerce, and society. To find out more, visit rgd.ca.