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Design Leadership Project: Reflection

Another danger of work silos is that it helps create distrust among leadership. One of the most important ways that I’ve found to combat that is through transparency. While I’ve found that employees don’t need, nor desire, to know everything going on in a company, they should still be aware when things are changing that affect them. Transparency builds trust and trust builds relationships. 

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Design Leadership Project: Reflection

Going forward, I would like to take with me, the essence of effective collaboration. The exchange of ideas between two departments, that could have been previously been at odds, is priceless. I would like to continue to use the tools that I have discovered for collaboration, to engage teammates and make a more positive work environment.

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Collaboration combats work silos

While doing my research into work silos, I’ve discovered that most people enjoy working within them. They enjoy the tribal feeling and needing to belong to a team. I’ve also learned that sometimes sharing ideas with people you don’t believe know as much as you in your industry, is difficult. I’ve tried in my project to combat ways that people can overcome those assumptions and communicate effectively on a cross-functional team.

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Chipotle - Social Responsibility

Continuing from last weeks visual diary, Chipotle is another company that has made it it's business to become socially responsible. I received an email from their CEO stating how they were combating the restaurant waste problem. In part it reads:

At Chipotle, we take sustainability seriously and are making great strides in reducing waste not just by creating multi-year goals, but by integrating immediate actions into our everyday business. While we don’t have all the answers, our commitment to divert 50% of our waste from landfills by 2020 comes to life through several key areas that have the biggest impact at our restaurants: Accurately measuring our waste Reducing our packaging Mindful preparation of our food Additionally, we’ve started acting on a waste blind spot for our industry: plastic gloves.

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Ben & Jerry’s - Social Responsibility

Ben & Jerry’s has built social responsibility into their business model. Taking up such issues as climate change, artificial growth hormone, family farmers, voting, and most recently the disproportionate amount of African Americans that are arrested for cannabis. Ben and Jerry's take on corporate social responsibilities is taking action to achieve more desired goals to expand their business growth .

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Tom’s Shoes - A Socially Responsible Shoe Company

TOMS is an accessory company that markets itself like a charity. When you buy their products, the company makes an in-kind donation to a person in need. When someone buys a pair of shoes in the US, the company donates a pair of shoes to a child in a poor country. TOMS is growing and adjusting its strategy to tackle the root causes of global health issues.

Along with shoe donations, TOMS has expanded to three more areas. First, a purchase of eyewear from TOMS supports prescription glasses, eye surgeries, and medical treatment. Second, for every bag of TOMS Roasting Co. Coffee, a week’s supply of clean water is provided to a community in need. Finally, the purchase of a TOMS bag helps fund the training of birth attendants and ensures safe births across the globe.

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Problematic Stake in the Ground

While I understand Apple’s commitment to innovation and sleek designed products, I and not a fan of their recent switcharoos with the removal of the headphone jack and the different chargers that are no longer compatible with the other apple devices. 

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Problematic Stake in the Ground

In a city nicknamed the Motor City, you can see how the addition of bike lanes has made commuting by car more than a hassle. While I do see the necessity of safety for bike riders, the recent surge and locations of them have caused many in Detroit to think this is just another way the mayor is gentrifying the city. In an effort to increase several forms of mobility and connect riders to commercial corridors, busy streets are having their traffic cut in half to make room for the bike lanes.

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Stake in the Ground - Chick fil a

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Stake in the Ground - Steve Jobs

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Gender Roles

In the instance of gender roles, I believe it is a cultural parameter that can be broken in certain instances. In the US, where the roles of men and women are constantly evolving, I think it’s ok to stretch the ideas from what is usually considered appropriate. These days, women are going to work and men are staying home with the children. It’s no longer a set standard for what each individual household deems as acceptable. As long as breaking the cultural parameters doesn’t put anyone in danger, it should be fine. Cultural differences will sometimes come with different parameters and decide whether or not they can be broken. For example, an ad in the U.S with a woman putting on “the pants” and going to work in the morning vs. an ad in Afghanistan with a woman removing her burka. One would probably be ok and most-likely seen as empowering while the other would not. 

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Time Orientation

While my parents both worked well into their sixties, growing up in the generation of millennials, that was never my own goal. They both graduated from high school and proceeded to get a job, keep that same job and retire 30-40 years later. My generation is the complete opposite. Most of my friends are either full-time entrepreneurs, part-time entrepreneurs or switch jobs every 2-3 years. They don’t see the benefits of giving a company your all for most of your life and then retiring at the end of your life with a small pension. I find myself in that group as well. I started my own company, Lola Bee Studio, 7 years ago in hopes that I can retire early and have the second half of my life be the better half of my life. 

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The Lightbulb

Thomas Edison had to have known the revolutionary impact the lightbulb would have on society. Where people once depended on the sun in the daytime and candles at night, they know had access to artificial lighting at all times. It also affected the economy by increasing the length of the workday. Because there was a better light source, workers no longer had to stop before the sun went down. Today, most of us could not imagine living without the lightbulb, including me. At this very moment, I have 3 on.

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Graffiti + Nature

I really love seeing images where nature and art meet. It’s a great example of design leadership because it makes use of design parameters such as space, and anticipation of the future. In the example above, the more the tree grows, the bigger the afro gets!

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This retreat packet developed by Oda Creative, is one of my favorite design pieces of all time. It is completely human-centered keeping the attendee in mind the entire time. The video brochure is still a relatively new technology and it isn’t used frequently. Here it is used very effectively. It is not the first time that I have seen it used but it is the first time that I’ve seen it used in such an innovative way.

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Since taking Design Thinking at Georgetown and now Design Leadership, I’ve been thinking of how to easily (and with the least amount of conflict) to add design thinking tools to our workflow. On our dry erase board, I write a topic at the beginning of the week. While people come in and out of the office, they are encouraged to place a sticky next to the topic with their opinion. At the end of the week, the post-its are categorized and I attempt to come up with a solution to the small design problem. While the topic is never anything serious, it is a way to introduce some of the cross-collaboration innovation techniques. 

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