#23: How the best design recruiter in the country, Judy Wert, seeks out the top 1% of designers

hey welcome to high resolution my name is Bobby goall and I'm Jared randu today we've got a guest who is a master of design except she's a little bit different she used to be a designer mhm

but now she's one of the best people in the world at executive Staffing and recruiting in the design industry who is it that's Judy W Judy is the founder of

wart and company she's going to tell us how she's been recruiting the best designers for over 20 years what she sees in a top 1% of those designers and what she'd actually look for if you were to interview with her her story is

amazing she's amazing stick around this one's going to be worth it thanks to Squarespace for their support whether you need a domain a website or an online store make your

next move at Squarespace visit squarespace.com and enter the code high resolution one word for 10% off your first purchase Judy thanks for joining us thanks for

having me so first question what's one thing about design that's clear to you that you don't think is so clear to other people you know I've been thinking about this question it's a it's a tough

question to answer we all know design is everywhere it's here it's it it's what we breathe every day it's what we touch every day

it's what we experience every day it's everywhere so I think when I think about that question I think more about the human factor of design and the stories

and the narratives of the people that are behind the design that's the lens of which I see the world that's how I learn about design but it's always through people

and through stories and I was thinking about a good way to think about people's stories is actually through a children's book that

I was talking to a group of students about the other day and have you guys ever read Harold in the Purple Crayon mhm no I haven't well you must read it I

have a kid now though so I could it's it's it's a wonderful story about this boy named Harold and he has this blank

page or blank World in which he can create his canvas and he takes this purple crayon and he creates these Mountain mountains and he creates these

tall buildings and he creates these dragons all a part of his world and it's it's got a lot of wisdom behind the

Simplicity and and I think that's the lens that I see design is millions of design Talent at all stages with their

purple cray and it's an it's it's um exhilarating to watch people go through that journey and to study their story and then to think about even in this

room or when you go into an airport or wherever you go like there's a million trillion billion little stories because everything is about design yeah like

just this and who's behind this and what are their what are their families about and you know do they have an elderly parent do they have six dogs you

know that's what I think about when I think of design are the people yeah stor we we we met with Tom Kelly recently and he talked about the three factors of design right so you've got the business

factors you've got the technology factors and the human factors so you touched on human factors I'm curious is is the human factor something you've always known was an integral part of design or is that something that evolved

uh with your understanding of design and the design when I talk about human factors it's a it's slightly different the way you know Tom would talk about it I talk about it as the human factor

slightly different emphasis on the word versus human factors versus human factor so I'm paying attention to the human

issues ah that um are built into design because design is by the people for the people but it is by people who have real

stories yes right so you started your career as a designer and then you moved into executive recruiting um what Drew you to that kind of work like how did you get into recruiting and what does

that actually mean to you today fair question it's true I started as a designer and you don't study to become a

recruiter there's no recruiting school yet however when I it really was a little bit of an accident that I fell

into recruiting um I was practicing design my husband and I moved abroad we came back to New York had a little eight-month-old at the time and I needed

a job and and I had practiced design I was in design management I worked with Fortune 500

companies and um someone thought that I might be a good recruiter so I'm like I need a job I'm going to just Dive Right In and give it a shot and it really

within a month I was like I love this work this is about taking the knowledge I have around design at that time it was more classical traditional design

my interest in people and um having worked in LA and Minneapolis and Chicago in Israel I had

like different communities that were starting to just be naturally part of my the extension of my world profess

professionally and personally so in my career kind of just took off melding all these pieces together um I think I'm a designer first and a

recruiter second um but I think my recruiting is absolutely has Mirrors design process in

every sense of the way and the way that we think about our approach the way we the way we navigate through searches and clients and relationships so I realized that this is a couple decades ago that

you started working in this world is that right um my my design career started in 79 my recruiting um in 91

okay so I realized it's a long time ago but I can remember exactly the day perfect well that's the question then like what so the Judy today yeah and the

Judy of 91 getting into executive recruiting and Staffing um so you said you use a design process to to get better at this world what's the

difference between that Judy and this Judy well the Judy as a designer you know I was working

on you know a variety of projects it was very focused um head to the ground in many ways back then um we didn't even have computers when I started design it

was we were still sketching and moving Ruby lith and panone paper and lret remember letter set I Used to Love Letter set

um so I think when I became a recruiter I had to absolutely integrate into business in a

more serious way and I had to I made an intentional decision to focus my medium was no longer the tools of design my medium was

people and that's the biggest difference is that instead of the story through type and color and layout my my output

was the story of people in conversation I read an interesting quote from you recently I'd like to tell you the quote and i' like it expand on what you meant by it okay yeah um so the quote is never

leave a company when you're running away from something wait until everything is going really well then leave if it still

makes sense M uh do you recall who you said that to absolutely yeah I amum was a very talented man gentleman who worked

at a pretty well-known on global design consultancy and he came to us thinking that he was going to look for a new job yeah you know I I was excited to speak

with him super talented I'm sure my clients would all have loved to have hire him but I felt his discontent that there was something there that he needed

to wrestle with before taking a new job and it would not be in his best interest to be placed at the wrong time and it wouldn't be in my best interest if I want to

bring Integrity to my client relations and the submissions that we make so I'm like dude you need to you know you need to wrestle with this problem that you're having internally with one of your

colleagues and until you wrestle with that you're not it's just going to come to haunt you the next move and I don't think you're making a move for the right

reasons and um I would say that I I played a very um like gentle provoc to her in that process and he stayed with the

company and he's there and he's really happy and he reimagined his role never got to place him but I got flowers and I get lots of referrals from him because

he trusts that I was I had his back M and it was for the right reasons that I didn't represent him yeah what role maybe one day I will yeah what role does

uh patience play in the development of someone's career um I would say patience is a pretty awesome virtue to have um I

think employing patience in my process is an absolute if I want to take the long view of a relationship versus the short-term you know

transaction um sometimes I'll have conversations with people that might just be a minute and then 5 years later

an hour hour and then 3 years later you know could spend two full days together um kind of depends on the person what they're willing to share the timing of

where they are in their life their desire to make a change or not but my Approach has always been take a conversation with an interesting person

and at some point that will play out the way it needs to and for designers who can't get in a room with you right um and they're still very new in their career and it's it seems now that like

the tenure the average tenure that someone spends in a company especially in the startup world is very short um what yeah yeah like what questions should they be asking themselves um before they actually think it's ready to

move right like it it seems that a lot of them lacked this patience and want to just do it all but what should they be asking themselves why am I leaving and look themselves in the mirror and be

honest about am I leaving for money am I leaving because I don't get along with my boss am I leaving cuz I'm not passionate about the actual work I'm leaving

because I'm in the wrong role I think these are the things that people need to really ask themselves and then what can be overcome and what what's

insurmountable and I think being thoughtful about those considerations will hopefully help them see if they're running away from

something mhm that will show up in their next job no it just happens or if there's something that really they want to make they need to make a fundamental

shift to you know be satisfied so what are some bad reasons to leave a company uh that's money is not a bad reason to leave like if you I think like my my I have I have a template people

purpose and pay right I actually think these three are equally important um for the perfect job y right so uh if any one of those two are out of syn sync uh I

think it's a good maybe not a good reason to leave but maybe a good reason to start asking the question is this still where I want to be right what what are some other reasons why you might not want to be

around uh I mean I think culture is key right if the culture is not right I definitely think that's the reason to leave I don't know if that's answering your question I

think money is a real consider a you know it depends on where you are at this stage of your life I think I do believe that

focusing I think there's a lot of money out there right now and I think there are people who are making decisions for money and I think in my experience has

been in the last 20 25 years if you only make a decision based on money MH it's not sustainable I agree so you've interviewed hundreds maybe

thousands of designers hundreds of thousands millions um like I I just want to like step into your mind for a bit like what are some of the best interview questions you you

ask people to like get to understand them well let me rephr rephrase the word interview to start like I really like to

approach every conversation as a dialogue okay and um I guess technically is an interview but I never want let me take a step back it depends

on where I am in the conversation right like if I'm just having an exploratory conversation which I love having I believe in them I think that people should take more of those exploratory

conversations to plant seeds for the possibility not just for the moment at hand those question those conversations are a bit more overview it's just

finding a connecting moment a nugget that we can share laugh about but I get something some baseline heart-based

reading about who this person is um and and take note of that um then there are more there deeper level conversations where I think I might have a job for

them but I I still want to keep it open-minded I work my hardest not to have the first conversation if it possible about a job um I'd rather even if I go and talk to somebody about a job

I'd rather be the the second conversation than the first conversation people will feel like they're sometimes being interviewed by me but my hope is that they feel like it

didn't feel like an interview as much as it felt like a great conversation where both parties learned about each other and my questions I don't go by

Script anymore it's really a lot of strategic intuition employed in the conversation I might ask meta questions like

you know what makes you happy what do you love about your job today what gets in your way of thriving what's you know

what's a reference what's a what what are you going to give me that a reference what give me somebody that you wouldn't give as a reference oo revealing you learn a lot from that

question so often times I may only ask three four or five questions um that are like at that meta level of course I'm going to ask like why did you leave this

position um you know what was the reporting structure like you know what was the interdiscipline interdisciplinary team like

um it just depends on the the job and the person and the level you said strategic intuition it's I mean it sounds cool but

what do you mean by it it's really well the intuition is something that you're just built with like any designer right like you just naturally have these instincts about how to put something

together or how to get dressed in the morning like you just have this intuitive piece um and the strategy the Strategic piece is

years and years of experience and exposure and insights that you've developed through conversation so if you

marry like that intuition that Malcolm Gladwell thin slicing thing with the experience in the footprint that I've traveled on I guess that's how I arrive

at this notion of strategic ins strategic intuition do you this is just a personal question do you cold email designers of course what do you say in

this I hope but I hope it's not cold okay yeah you warm warm yeah um absolutely because when we're hired to do search I'm not usually representing

the people who are contacting me at that moment it's really going after the people that I think are going to be right for that position based on the

criteria so in the in the early days of recruiting every single Outreach was a phone call and it was a phone call to the workplace where there was a

receptionist that was screening your calls so I had two layers of people I needed to get through I had what lie did you tell never lied actually come on are

you serious never lied it was we did training at won company with a woman who passed away but she was amazing and the rule was never lie to get past that door

now you can be clever which we had to employ cleverness to get past the door and I don't think I'm going to tell you all my tools and tricks on today's call

but um so we didn't have email when we first started and um so I had to just make I had to call them and I had to

connect with them on the phone right there wasn't Skype there wasn't email there wasn't Google Hangout yeah um today it's almost weird to get a phone

call before you get that intro email I think people are just used to that Medium so you know my emails are pretty basic sometimes I'm very explicit while

I'm contacting them I have this search um it reports to this individual if you're interested in the position let me know mhm sometimes I might not be

sure that they're right for the position CU I don't know enough about them yet and I don't want to be off the mark so I might just say I have an opportunity that I'm working on I would love to have

a conversation with you would you be open to a dialogue so in your conversations uh well the way you describe the conversations you have with designers earlier sounds kind of like a

therapy session right which is would you would you agree I think that I I will provoke important topics I I think I

will challenge some Notions I will um one of my candidates of 15 plus years who's now a friend he always he he refers to me as the coconut girl because

I'm like sort of I can be hard sometimes on the outside and and pointed in my delivery but on the inside I'm full of empathy and vulnerability just like every other

designer um and I but I don't know if I would want to say therapy um cuz there's a there is a limit I do think people feel

like they've gone through some sort of transformation after the conversation even if it's a a like wakening their eyes to something that they all of a sudden heard themselves saying but I

would I'd rather think of it as that I'm coaching and that I'm guiding and I'm provoking honesty I mean I I I remember our our first conversation right and and

you came off more like a friend than I'd say aren't we friends well we're here now we're friends for sure um we hug each other now and we see each other which is great this is what I hope to

obtain in all my conversations not everyone hugs as well as you do I'm a big hugger um I so I remember you coming off as a as a friend which was interesting cuz that was the moment

where I realized you were Cut From a Different Cloth um and I and which is like a really good I mean a good cloth a better cloth um that does that

personality that you have make people want to like open up to you a little too much um you know there's there's lots of different personalities out there I

think that there are certain people who appreciate that approach and I do get that feedback that you know that I'm that people somehow trust I'm coming

from the right place yeah um I definitely feel like there is a stigma in the industry around recruiting and so sometimes it an earn stigma I think like

it like most recruiters have earned the stigma that is placed on would you not agree with that I honestly I don't think that would be for my for me to say in

this conversation work I I think that I I believe that technology and that easy access to people yeah you know when I started

LinkedIn didn't exist Facebook didn't exist Linkin has become a tool for some like myself but for some

it's become the tool mhm and I think there's a difference and the problem with LinkedIn even though we all love

and use LinkedIn on some level um is that people misuse the medium and so

designers um have a allergy relationship to recruiters sometimes because they're in the great designers are being inundated all the time and they're being

inundated through that medium and you often see LinkedIn profiles now disappearing people don't want to be bothered anymore or they'll specifically

say if you're a recruiter please don't contact me I'm I'm curious what you would tell any recruiter who's listening to this and actually feels that they are stigmatized against um something that

they can change in their approach to actually get through that door with the designer or any person well it depends again on the individual like there are

some great recruiters who I think have that Personal Touch and then there are some recruiters who are really their salespeople and they're sales people

first and their metrics at their organization require them to deliver X number of closed headcount and so their

system that they work with enforces that approach um of the hundreds maybe even thousands of designers who you've interacted with uh have you noticed any

common themes or or threads you can tie between them in terms of what sets them on a career path that is really good

yeah yeah I would say there's like there's two overarching bits and then we could break

it down and create this org chart based on or org system um one is the Mastery of their craft and I think whatever that craft is they

they own it that they own that space they're perfecting it they're surrounding themselves by other amazing people in that area and they're and this takes time of course right but there's

this constant evolution of the Mastery of their craft and then there's what I would refer to as sort of the Mastery of

themselves and um having a level of self-reflective [Music] um perspective about keeping their

exuberance in check we know there's a lot of exuberance in the industry I think a little is okay a lot is going to trip them up at some point I

believe um but I think it's those two things at a very broad level that make for what I believe to be an amazing

creative leadership Humanity craft mhm um you know other things like

collaborative skills textured Minds you know that they they they're able to think expans expansively elastic minds I think those

are the people that are going to stand out from to the top and the designers you've helped play at some amazing or organizations um did they have Mastery

of these two things already or were they just self-aware to the fact that well I think we're all we become Masters over time but you can

have little masteries along the way um and I think you're sort of wired some of these things you can learn but some things you're just you're wired a

certain way through observing your parents and how they got through their Journeys um you pick up good habits you

pick up bad habits um so I think I mean I was a really good student in high school you know so I was sort of the master in high school and I

was a really an a student in college so you know these things these these themes pass on through various life cycles of

your Professional Evolution and personal Evolution I get that that Personal Mastery and and professional Master professional craft-based Mastery are two

things that would probably give advice to every designer every person in no matter I'll say it to someone in high school I'll say someone in kindergarten

in in a different language of course but but every time we is that what we're here for is to to master like our our the reason we're on this planet absolutely agree um Master being a good

human being right like that's a good thing um every time you and I have a conversation I mention someone in the industry and you say yeah I know that person yeah you know this is I worked with this person for the last 15 years

and that person for the last 20 years and it's crazy like I think Jared and I walk away every time we talk to you we're just like how does she know all these people like you know like half our lineup yeah yeah exactly so so so so I

get that professional and Personal Mastery is a blanket statement for every human being on planet Earth but for the 1% the best people yeah that you've

worked with yeah over your 20 25 year recruiting career yeah what are there secrets you know like is there like a thing there between I think there's a

like a certain level of resilience oh sure um endurance yes um optimism Relentless

optimism um Vision like they have a vision and they know themselves enough that they're going to

fight for that vision and they are it's this is like a side note but many of the really incredibly talented people

are surrounded by other really incredibly intented people so there's this drive to to be amongst that community and for the the younger

generation of designers right who are still who are just getting into the industry and still trying to figure some things out um have you noticed any patterns of things that they seem to be overlooking but you know like you mentioned Brazil you mentioned the

characteristic of this top 1% right um and obviously some of those skills they just inherently had and some of them they built along the way um but there has to be two or three things that you've noticed a lot of young people are

looking over that they're missing out on um one thing that I would say to that and I think this is this is a generational

issue and I think it's because at least for designers design they only know that design is important they don't know when design

wasn't as important as it is today so they take that for granted and they don't they they haven't

experienced a little bit of that apprenticeship that we had to do when we were just starting out and so there's a

certain amount of uh entitlement that I think sometimes can get in the way of advancement and learning and if there's a problem at work they've got four other

job offers and 20 other LinkedIn inquiries right presenting them with the next thing yeah um you know one of the reasons that we focus on the more senior level is because we we want people to

kind of get through that process a little bit of the the um the EB and flow of the early stages of your career and I think

inevitably the industry is not always going to be as healthy and and vibrant as it is today um and they may be surprised that they're not going to have

lunches paid for and gym memberships paid for there there will maybe be another time that comes I maybe maybe not um that not

everything is going to be handed to you in quite the same way it might now um design will be here though design is important now design was organizations

were still design wasn't as prevalent back when I started design existed but the amount of design in the industry now is just you you you

pick the right horse to back and the from an industrial standpoint I think design is a good place to be right now um when we come back when I picked design though it was not be I didn't say

I'm going to be a design recruiter and I know it's going to be this and I'm going to make a lot of money and I went into it because I was just banking on my relationships and my care for people and

my network and that's how I started it started in my living room like I didn't know where this was all going thanks again to Squarespace for supporting the show Squarespace is the

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highresolution for 3 months free okay so right before this you pulled out your computer and you sat us down and you showed us a database that

you put together that's now 20 years old 22 22 years old with still blows my mind every person you've ever met in the industry every

conversation you've ever had tagged by keywords tagged with calendar Times personal notes how you contacted them um and I don't even know what like

everything like you have this relationship diagram you understand people better than they understand themselves which is a little bit mind-blowing talk to us about setting this up and how you use it today because

that sound it's a little scary if it's accurate it's a little scary it is accurate we um made a very uh intentional decision early on to

invest in technology in our database yeah this database operates like LinkedIn pre- LinkedIn um everyone in our company has

to use it and have to respect it and honor it as it's a real tool it's like it's just it's where we keep and

save everything it's a vault it's a a Rolodex of passions and dreams and stories and and people's resumés and

work from you know if some if I've represented somebody five six seven times over this period of time I have every single portfolio that they've ever put together wow and often as people write hey do you have not anymore more

cuz LinkedIn but back in the day pre- LinkedIn like hey do you still have my resume I need it to like refine um but I think what's even more

powerful about this tool and we do we are religious about um saving data adding people in that we haven't spoken

to yet that will no doubt be a person in our in our community that we want to have a conversation with so it's it's not only who we've met and who we've

spoken to it's who we want to speak to and philosophically to this day that is how we approach our database so it every I would you know the ex it expands daily

in terms of new research new personalities but what's most what I'm what I'm so passionate about with this database it's really a h a tool it's D

it's big data it's data about the history of design companies that no longer exist companies that were developed by three

people who were then Acquired and even over this course of this 22e history the keywords that we had back then we used to have information architecture then we

changed it to interaction design then we changed it to ux we built in usability human factors that have became consumer experience design now it's VR

and now it's VC designers are in the VC world it's big data it's dat it's Management Consultant these this is like

the history of design is like we have key wordss that show when in time the switch of nomenclature to one R

to the next Ro to the next Ro and we save every data point and we have um portfolio critics that will you know

over the years that have been incredible at putting language like we'll we'll have looked at a portfolio or old website or an old WordPress and we'll

take note of that even if it's we haven't met them yet but it's like a snippet and I actually have a really awesome snippet that okay I wanted to

share with you um and this was back in 2007 that one of our um one of my team members wrote and they wrote can't link

to this was in 2007 can't link to anything from his juice Studio website but clearly has a passionate funny tone

to his creative work and um really like what he did on crit buns site which was a RISD uh graduate project um not sure if you've heard of crit buns but it's

basically a portable foam seat cushioning easy to clean that was created because people's butts hurt when they were doing design crits and then she went on to write an entrepreneurial

ID Talent need to see more work to judge um um but you know the work that he was doing at Chronicle Books and what I know of Chronicle and what I see of Joe's

work they look like a good match his work is humorous clean across media youthful Sparky with high production

values this person Joe whose portfolio we reviewed in 2007 is now the co-founder of Airbnb Jo G Jo G so these

are the data points that we have before they become does he know that you have this data point that's Inc might now that's crazy yeah tag him on YouTube

yeah but we have this this is it I mean to me this is like I I have these little it's like your mother you know holding

on to your Elementary of course you know report card but these are the foundational like building blocks in which I begin to know someone that's an

amazing story yeah you've been I mean that's amazing you've been collecting all this information for over 20 years right 202 whon company was founded in

'95 so that's almost 22 years I've been recruiting since for 25 so over the course of that time um you know you you spoke about the tags um in your database system the keyword it almost sounds like

uh like Google Trends analytics like just seeing what what spikes what dips what spikes what dips absolutely um back then I'm actually going to be working with um a data that's going to be cool

are you going to like it yeah no we're we're going to work on a project where we are going to be able to map history not the entire history of design but you

know an overview over those years and yeah not by naming people no you can't do that so give give us a sneak peek other than Joe right Joe might be okay with that so so give us a sneak peek of

what we might see in that like what were what was the design industry trying to understand that then um that is obvious to us now and if you have seen any Trends yet what is kind of interesting

right now that might be obvious to us in the future yeah so we're seeing lots of Trends we're seeing um designers take on new

roles um just by the fact of like if we've tagged a designer like yourself VC because you're in the VC world that didn't exist before um

I think I think the biggest trend is really around roles um you know companies since we've been in business have come to us because of our

commitment to design you know our tagline and in 1995 was where design is intrical to business success we that we

actually actually I have the magazine ID magazine this issu is from 1997 literally 20 years old it I mean this was when interaction

design really just became you know a discipline um I I think it's the roles and the the intersection between

business and design that have come together more than ever and that designers are at the same table as the business person and in some Cas is the

CEO is the designer as we know design Le companies so um I think it's where they play in the food chain of the organization you know

that people have really they have a seat at the table now they're included in those important conversations they're now in the McKenzies they're in the management

consulting um we've had kind of a front row seat to that evolution in fact I remember around this time there was a company called Studio archetype which

was run by climate Mock and we were doing recruiting for them and it was one of the very first digital Studios that employed this notion of interaction

design and um they were acquired by Sapient and we won company was invited to sit at that very first meeting where

the engineers of sapen and the designers of Studio archetype were sitting in the room together for the first time thinking about how they were going to work together now think about that today

I mean the engineer and designer they may still have this but it's a given that they're going to work together that was new back that was a breakthrough

yeah I think you showed us earlier uh something in that magazine that's oh yeah this ad this was our very first um to the camera this was our very first

advertisement um that we placed in ID magazine and ID magazine was like really truly an amazing magazine and it was um

every discipline of design in a slightly more classical sense you know interact with design environment Design Graphic Design industrial design um but it was

really an amazing foundation for the design I still to the St I'm sad this doesn't exist but of course if this did exist we would have all kinds of new you

know they had award judges right per category the judges the categories would be so different today I mean you know drone design data

design had I mean medical and health did exist in here but not to the extent you know the whole patient experience there's so many new areas that design

plays a role now it's incredible so when these companies come to you um a lot of the time they have their own internal recruiters right so it strikes me as not

maybe not peculiar but interesting that the internal recruiting teams at these large companies that have all the resources in the world still come to you like you're bringing something new and different right what is that thing well

we'll speak about today because you're right like many of these large companies now have in-house capabilities and have built capacity because they can't hire enough designers to sustain their their

Vision as a company um won company mostly focuses on the senior level and so when companies come to us maybe there's a new CEO there's a

new mandate there's a new vision there's some new initiative that typically is happening and they need reach and they

need access and access doesn't necessarily mean and they need Consulting like we play a role in helping to think about their or or structure we we give them an outside

perspective if they're in their own world yeah they can only see their world on some level and it's always through the lens of that company I'm bringing an

overview from lots of different companies so I think um but what I was going to say is access doesn't just doesn't necessarily

mean doesn't necessarily mean having the resume sure it means being able to reach that candidate in a meaningful way to help them think about why this position

is good for them and helping the client to manage that process and in most cases we work we may work with the HR

but we have direct access to the decision maker our and when we don't it's not as successful are companies now looking for

leaders in areas of design that surprise you well nothing surprises me anymore because everything changes regularly as the industry and as technology is you

know bringing new inven to the today's conversation um you know AI VR Medias sort of taking it an

interesting um replay um organizational development you know designers that are really playing you know taking taking care of helping

to shape an organization um Big Data machine learning these are all things that we're exploring now with

clients how can companies create a culture of empowerment for designers I think they need to put designers in

charge and put the really strong amazing design thinkers in charge who have a strategic understanding who have systemic

minds and who care about design inculcating into everything that they do and every way they behave in charge of what though is this the the business the organizational structure

like what what should they be in charge of what should they be sping I think they can I think designers have you know depends on the designer there's the business minded designer they're more

apt to be involved in sort of the structure of an organization we see a lot of designers taking on new roles now that are it's not about creating a delightful experience per se it's

they're committed to experience design but they may be contributing to the conversation within an organization in a much more business-minded

way so we've spoken a lot about how you approach recruiting and um matching people to great opportunities right um but just thinking a little bit more

broad now for anyone hiring anyone right um whether this is a recruiter a manager it really doesn't matter um what what is something that you would tell them to think about and to pay attention to when

they now have to go and do that right so I know everyone's in a hurry they need that person right

away and they they they can't build what we have built if they've only been at a company two or three years I mean we've planted a lot of seeds I mean I have I

feel like my community is a garden full of all different kinds of flowers and a few weeds and whatnot um the advice I

would give is Take the Long View build the relationship with great talent don't close the door even though I know there are time constraints but don't close the

door to having a conversation with an a player missed opportunity you know sometimes I will hear a client say doesn't fit the brief doesn't match the

brief but this person is interested in your company they're incredibly talented MH like have the conversation and plant the seed now

it may not Sprout for 2 years from now if you take that long View and I think if recruiters internally have metrics that they need to buy by it's like it's not you know I don't even know

if I'm going to be here in two years from now um you know I think getting decision makers involved early

on and having that lunch or coffee will have a lot of mileage time is tough people are

busy this is how I built my community and if you want to and good designers know good designers if they have one bad experience interviewing in your company

and they've gone through a process and they haven't felt like they've been treated well Domino yeah it's going to happen I think that's really good

advice I think that's a a good segue into what we call Community questions we have some Community questions right um so we reached out to our community and

we ask them what's burning up inside of them what they want to know about and we have three questions for you okay so good I'm ready let's do it okay um so the first question is how should

designers explain the role of design to people in their business uh in their company that's not design driven already okay so that's a fair point I I think since most

companies are probably not design driven yes yes design is going to make the experience for the user a better experience and a more

delightful experience through the use of design and design [Music] thinking it's going to have function and it's going to have form it's going to delight and it's

going to work and for the business person that pushes back and say yeah yeah yeah okay I get it that's cool what then so the

designer cuz I the reason I asked that is I think designers get this advice a lot right so tell them about the value

of design show them bad design so that they understand what good design looks like um and I like one of the areas where I

think a lot of designers probably get stuck is the moment the moment they try and express the value of design by

showing someone an example of yeah um that they still don't break through takes time to build design culture and

to build design understanding from Top on down and you have to be invested in that that that timeline that it's not overnight doesn't happen overnight

especially if it's not a design Le company or that is CEO is not a designer it takes time and you have to find an ally within the organization that's

going to that you believe kind of gets it and you're going to take baby steps to influence that conversation from one people to two

people to three people to a board meeting yeah do and and this is I'm just following on this is not a secondary Community question but um uh

where a design leader goes into a company that isn't design Le would you would you give the design leader advice to make a deal with their hiring manager whether it's a CEO or BP a product or

whatever not to judge design for a specific amount of time just because it takes that long to incubate set up and really start driving some results I mean you have to have I'm not sure it's just

with HR I think it's with you know the leaders of the business that you need to negotiate expectations ab and and help decide you know what is that time period

what does success look like for you as the hiring manager the first year the first three years and negotiate that understanding absolutely so carrying on

that thread the second question is when you're the only designer at a business how do you convince leadership of its value kind of the same way you have toine an ally within the company

designer or not if you're the only designer then there isn't another designer there's who might be empathetically wired who you have to find that person and you have to

negotiate that and you have to build momentum and you have to build this muscle and muscles take time to build is there any is there any like pattern in what kind of person at a business tends

to be that like a good Ally someone who's got really good social skills or they they influence through their amazing work I mean you can be an

influencer in lots of different ways but I think someone who is incredibly talented and trustworthy but they might be very they might be introverted chances are though if you're going to go

be the first designer in a company for it to work they need to have some social intelligence so I've actually found two

characteristics of the best kind of Ally yeah I wonder if You' agree so the first is you're 100% right it's the social skills it's the political skills and hopefully it's someone that actually have some influence in the company so like they're not you know someone who's

trying to be political at the entry level but actually at the VP or higher level of the company the head of the company does not want to meet this young designer in the interview process game

over well so the second the second characteristic that I've actually found is if you can find that political good speaking person and if they have good taste right like if you can like like I

I send me who that person is no no but I found like in especially in big companies you're bound I mean just the way numbers work in these large comp you're bound to find someone at the top

who has good taste to help Drive design uh to the right people in the organization um hopefully whoever is sending you this question in your community does have that yes yes that's

fair that's fair okay well we have one more question okay y okay so we can end with this one as the per as the purpose of design and the function of design

continues to evolve um what roles and methodologies do you think will emerge over the next five years yeah methodologies I'm not sure I would

answer that question but I think we're going to be talking about as the conversation continues we're going to be talking about machine ethics we're going to be talking about

machine learning we're going to be talking about Humanity we're going to be talking about Civic engag engagement we're going

to be talking about government we're going to be talking about education and a much

more meaningful way well I in a much more um critical way because of where the world is today and how complicated things have

become and I think design in its best form can play such an important role

and be an integral part of being at the United Nations being one day maybe even in the White House who knows and in fact if

they get in the White House they're probably in my database that's awesome that's amazing you know one day I may get a search for a chief drone

officer I don't know you know you just don't know what's to come but you know that technology and

Humanity have to coexist that's a good place to end thank you Judy thank you thank you hey you made it to the end congratulations thanks for watching the

episode I really really hope you liked it if you did like it please leave us a review on the iTunes Store and by the way if you have any questions that came up because of the content that we

covered with our guests go on YouTube go on Twitter you can tweet us you can leave us a comment we'll get back to you we'll help you as much as possible at hes podcast that's the the screen name

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they've been an amazing partner on this entire project so surl video is a creative Studio based out of Portland Oregon they've helped creative communities tell stories for over 10

years they've done advertisements behind the scene footage um and documentaries for companies like Google slack XOXO Festival Adobe Intel they're incredible

they've traveled with us through the entire country documenting these stories with our guests that's incredible thank you so much surl listen if you're a startup looking to elevate your product if you're a big company looking to

humanize your brand if you're someone in the creative Community who just wants to tell a story you've got to check out the team at Sur video it's svideo.com

s e a l video.com check out our friends at STL thank you so much guys you guys

have been incredible on this project

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